Phoenix Imperium
by VulkansNodosaurus
Summary: It was the III Primarch that landed on Cthonia, and became the first to be raised by the Emperor. The XIV on Prospero, the IV on Macragge... But while the Primarchs are scattered differently, the Great Crusade blazes forth all the same.
1. Introduction

_It is a time of legend._

 _Mighty heroes battle for the right to rule the galaxy. The vast armies of the Emperor of Mankind set out into the stars in a Great Crusade - the myriad alien races are to be smashed by his elite warriors and wiped from the face of history._

 _The dawn of a new age of supremacy for humanity beckons. Gleaming citadels of marble and gold will celebrate the many victories of the Emperor, and countless systems will be returned to his control. Triumphs are raised, on world after world, to record these first steps of his most powerful champions._

 _First and foremost among these are the primarchs, superhuman beings who were created to lead the Space Marine Legions. They are unstoppable and magnificent, the pinnacle of the Emperor's genetic experimentation, while the Space Marines themselves are the mightiest human warriors the galaxy has ever known, each capable of besting a hundred normal men in combat._

 _Yet not all is as expected. Forces yet unknown have stolen the primarchs from their incubation in the Emperor's Luna laboratories, and scattered them among the stars. The Emperor had foreseen this, and built his sons to survive the trials to come. Yet the primarchs did not land on the worlds that both the Emperor and his enemies had intended for them. Instead, against both their designs, the primarchs and the galaxy shall follow an entirely different path out of the night._

 _The Imperium of Man rises from the ashes of the Age of Strife. But greater fires are yet to come, stoked by ancient plans both defied and embraced._


	2. 1-01: Faro 1

He gained consciousness slowly.

Around him, everything was dark enough to cast the world in shades of gray, but not so dark he could not see. As he instinctively crawled out of the pod that had contained him, he found himself in a large tunnel. Deep below, he could hear the rushing of water, but around him there was no one and nothing else.

The boy looked to the side, and saw his faint reflection in a still pool. White hair framed an infant's curious face. He nodded to himself, committing the greyscale image to memory, and began to crawl away, a crawl that gradually, as the child gained confidence, turned into a walk, and then a run.

He was stopped when he heard voices behind him, guttural calls. Investigating the pod he had been in, he quickly realized. There was an instinctive decision, at that point - walk towards them, or away? And if the former, was he to confront them, or to stay hidden? He was not sure whether he could observe them without being noticed, but ultimately, he decided not to try.

The boy came forward to meet the group. They seemed unkempt, to his eyes, and every one of them had a weapon at their belt. They raised those guns as the boy came closer, but slowly lowered them as he came into sight.

"It's just a child," the woman standing in the front of the group said.

"Right," said another, large and bearded man near the back of the group - the boy counted eight of them. "I say we leave it. So what's in the box?"

"We're not leaving him to die," a tattooed woman at the side of the group interjected, as the man who had spoken first inched towards the pod. "'Sides, we have food to spare."

"Feeling the urge of motherhood, eh, Disarta?" the man sitting next to her asked. Disarta responded with an expletive.

"No weapons in the box," the first woman called back from his investigation of the pod. "Can't make sense of the machinery, though. Come take a look, boss - I think the kid was in there." The boss - the bigger man who had spoken second - joined the first to investigate, while another, younger man came up to the boy.

"Come on, then," he said. "You don't want to be here when the Black Dogs show."

"Wires and nothing more," the boss said as he climbed out of the pod. "Well, guess there's a foundling to show for our efforts, then. Disarta, you don't have to raise him, but for now you're carrying him."

"I can walk," the boy said, slowly, trying to get the pronounciation right.

The boss stopped and stared.

"And talk," he muttered. "Where'd you come from, kid?"

The boy pointed to the pod, leading to grumbling nods. "Don't re-mem-ber more."

"Alright, fine, whatever," the boss said. "Then let's get out of here before the Dogs make an appearance. Canare first, then Yblarcar, then Disarta - help the kid - and Losid has the tail. Up, up! Hadrusbal won't be happy with you if you don't come back." That caused an outburst of harsh laughter. "Kid, I hope for your sake that the old boss likes you."

"Where?" the boy asked as he climbed the rope with some difficulty.

"Back to camp," Disarta said. Yblarcar talked over her, though. "Hive Vilepor," he said simultaneously.

"Hive Vilepor," the boss said from below, "is the hive we're in. Our camp is in that hive, near the top, and we're going there. Got it?"

"Yes," said the child.

"He needs a name," Canare yelled down from above. "Hadrusbal'd call him something unpronounceable, if you let him."

"Huh," said the boss. "Well..." He looked at the boy carefully, so that the boss's piercing blue gaze was almost a palpable force.

"Faro," he eventually said. "There is greatness in this child, I can see it. So let us hope it shines brightly for us all."


	3. 1-02: Hadrusbal 1

Hadrusbal, Overlord of the Death's Eyes gang, looked at Ganessiar Lo's group returning with skeptical eyes.

"So there was a box," he said, "with this baby in it?"

"Yes," Ganessiar said with a shrug that ruffled his rich beard. "I couldn't say what it was all about, frankly, but Disarta proposed we take him in."

Hadrusbal nodded - not everyone would have expected something like that from Disarta, but he knew the headhunter did in fact have a heart. Besides, the child was certainly pretty. And healthy - that was more important. "And what do you think?" he asked Ganessiar, playing for time.

"I say we do," Ganessiar said. "He's clever, already talks. Times are good. Why not?"

Hadrusbal nodded, taking a look around. Times were indeed good, but he was under no illusion that it would last. The narrow crawlspace around them had become an impromptu city of tents hidden in the interstices. Such was the way of the Death's Eyes - they were not one of the territorial gangs, nor were they torture-crazed berserkers. They were silent hunters, hiding when they needed to and striking when suitable. And that meant they traveled light.

Still, looking at the boy they'd named Faro, he couldn't quite bring himself to leave him for dead.

"Fine," he said. "He stays. Faro, come here. You're too young to be a full Death's Eye, but you're with us now. Got it?"

"Yes," Faro said.

"Do you remember anything before you landed?" Hadrusbal added, as he got the paints ready.

Faro shook his head. "No," he added. "Just darkness."

Hadrusbal felt like he was a pretty good judge of character, and a kid this young wouldn't have thought to lie anyway. But he still wondered, for a moment, where Faro had come from.

"Come forward, then," he said. "I'm going to paint lines around your eyes, which means you're a Death's Eye youngling, and that anyone who messes with you messes with us. Got it?"

Faro, apparently, did. In retrospect, Hadrusbal wasn't sure if he was using overly difficult words - it was hard to tell how old Faro actually was. His estimate had swung back and forth between one and five years, which was a ridiculously big range. Well, it wasn't as if Hadrusbal usually dealt with children. Presumably whoever took him in would know better.

After applying the markings, Hadrusbal gave the child to Ganessiar, who didn't seem to mind the prospect of raising him. Well, if he changed his mind later, Hadrusbal would deal with it later. For now, he looked over the scavenge that Yblarcar and Nor had hauled up, from the pod - in person, because he'd been a mechanic long before he became Overlord. Some of it looked like wiring, which would be useful. Other bits seemed like gang tags, but not of any gang Hadrusbal recognized. And there was the central insignia, three parallel vertical lines. That, too, Hadrusbal couldn't recall having seen before. Maybe these were tally marks, for all he knew.

"Hadrusbal?" a voice asked. Hadrusbal raised his head, angry, before realizing it was Faro who had spoken.

"First lesson, kid," he growled. "It's Overlord Hadrusbal."

"Okay," Faro said. "Overlord Hadrusbal - who are the Black Dogs? Ganessiar told me to ask you."

Hadrusbal bit back a groan. The matter was delicate, but Ganessiar should've known better than to dump it on him. Though he supposed neither Ganessiar nor his partner Blozanise had raised a child before, and didn't know what to do when he asked about the matter. "They're our enemies," he said. "Everyone's enemies, really. They do really bad things to anyone they come across, so stay away from them." He didn't go into detail about the torture, rape, and corpse-desecration. But he did think about them, about what they'd done to Mandar and to Tutisby, and so his choler rose regardless. "They're monsters, the sort of people who don't make anything and only steal it. The fuckers that cause the famines, all to paint the hives red. Anyway, if you see their symbol, tell the adults immediately."

He demonstrated it to Faro, but the boy seemed more curious about other things. "You hate them," he said.

"You will as well," Hadrusbal said, "in time. Now go find your father, and ask him the rest of your questions. I'm busy."

"Ganessiar is my guardian, not my father," Faro said, but left. And Hadrusbal closed his eyes for a moment, before leaving to talk to Calusi about scouting shifts.

And hoped that he had truly done Faro a service, by taking him in.


	4. 1-03: Faro 2

It took Faro some time to realize how Hive Vilepor worked.

It wasn't that the system was complicated. The territorial gangs grew food and forged metal, and the nomads built tools and carried goods, and they traded with each other and fought each other, depending on how their leaders felt. Everyone was always on the edge of starvation, but not quite there, because if you had too much food other gangs would try and take it from you, which meant you had to spend time training to fight. And then there were the crazies, like the Black Dogs, which kept everyone honest by fighting everyone all the time.

All of this took Faro several sleep cycles to figure out, though, because it was something people assumed he already knew, even though he'd said he remembered nothing. Inside, Faro knew he was meant for something more than continuing the slowly decaying cycle, but for now he was with the Death's Eyes.

In time, Ganessiar Lo had emphasized, he'd need to learn how to fight as well. And so he started training, mainly by playing with the other children. He improved quickly, even if it was by being heavily beaten - it didn't matter that much, for he healed quickly.

"He's not human," one of the older children, Gavaleppo, said. But most of them were more excited to follow him. Ezekyle Keyshen was Faro's best friend, in this time - he was good with a blade, quick with a laugh, and ever full of wonder.

He snuck away to the surface sometimes, with Faro, and they would look into the smoky skies. One night there wasn't much smoke, and the night was filled with bright dots. Faro could see better than anyone else in the Death's Eyes, and so where Ezekyle saw only a dozen dots, Faro got lost in the designs of hundreds. "They're beautiful," he said. "The stars."

"The adults say they don't matter," Ezekyle said.

"The adults are wrong," Faro answered. "They do matter. Or at least, they should."

They climbed down from the roof after that, daring jumps between ladders that almost - almost - saw them both fall into the abyss below. Ezekyle jumped quickly, trying not to think about the danger, but Faro preferred to do so at a more measured pace.

The first twenty cycles passed by in a blur like that, play and pride and preparation. But by the end of them the adults were growing increasingly worried. "We're moving soon," Ganessiar had explained when Faro asked. "We're picking this area clean, and sooner or later the Black Dogs are going to find us."

On the twenty-first cycle, they did.

There were whoops from afar, and the roaring of bikes. Ezekyle cowered when he heard them. "Come on," he said, pulling on Faro's arm. "We need to hide!"

"Shouldn't we fight?"

"Let the adults do that."

Fate would have it differently, though. The hole was well-disguised, but the Black Dogs were clever, and so they had found it. Faro looked up from the rebar to see a man he had never seen before, wearing mismatched armor marked with the enemy gang's symbol, standing before the entrance, dragging a crying Hiali out of it.

Faro acted without thinking, dashing forward and driving his knife into the Black Dog's foot with a hoarse battle cry. He hollered in pain, glancing around for an enemy as Faro struck upwards. With the second cut, the enemy ganger hit him across the face, throwing him into a wall. Dazed for a moment, Faro saw Hiali pick up his knife and drive it into the Black Dog's thigh. He growled again, but this time there was Ezekyle grasping at him, and then Faro gathered his breath and charged forward, and the Black Dog went down, and Hiali cut his neck, and suddenly, amidst the blood, he was no longer moving.

Flush with the victory as he was, Faro could hear laughing. A woman walked out, also wearing the Black Dogs' colors. "Always knew Nax would go down easy," she said, "but dying to three kids is hilarious even for him. That said, join the Dogs and you'll live."

Faro hesitated for a moment, gripping for the dead Dog's weapon, before a shot rang out.

"Not happening," Ganessiar Lo said.

He ran at the woman, and she ran at him, both shooting a couple times but not scoring more than glancing hits. Then the dance of blades began, and Faro could see right away that the woman was more skilled. She turned Ganessiar's blows aside, and a moment later he saw her bayonet strike forward -

Only for her head to explode in a shower of gore.

"Ganessiar?!" Blozanise asked, running towards him with the gun. Faro did the same.

It was too late, though. That was clear all too quickly. Ganessiar took several minutes to die, whispering his best wishes to his partner and to his son.

The Black Dogs were retreating, it quickly became clear, despite the toll they had reaped. They made off with some loot, but not too much. And as he held his foster father's hand, Faro felt the hate that Hadrusbal had promised him, mixed with a profound disdain. He cried, not just because Ganessiar had died, but because he had died meaninglessly. It was all futile; they clashed, and as they did, the walls of the hives collapsed, never to be rebuilt. How long until the stars shone on a dead world, here? How long until they were all dead, skirmish by skirmish, raid by raid?

And Faro swore, then, holding Ganessiar's unmoving hand, that he would fix Cthonia. That he would save it, somehow, from itself, and create a world where buildings and hives were raised, not only destroyed.

"A worthy goal," Hadrusbal said, afterward, "but impossible. You'd probably have to conquer the entire world first."

"If I have to," Faro said resolutely, "I will."

Hadrusbal shook his head with a chuckle. "You know, kid," he said, "when you say it like that, it sounds entirely reasonable. You'll be a real heart-stealer in time... unless you turn into a dragon or something. Maybe even then. But as to fixing the world..." He looked into the distance, through a hole in the building wall, even though the sky was so full of smoke today that it stung even Faro's eyes. "Well, I suppose that it was a wiser oath than the one I swore when I was your age. Impossible to keep, to be sure. But wise."


	5. 1-04: Hadrusbal 2

Five cycles after the Black Dogs' attack, Calusi rolled up, her bike smoking and clearly pushed faster than the scouting boss could manage, seemingly without regard for stealth.

"The recruiters are here," she said without preamble, even though she would have known full well that it would cause a panic.

Hadrusbal might have panicked too, if he'd thought that he could do anything. The truth is, the recruiters - the Imperials, they called themselves - were impossible to fight. They all knew that. Armed with guns and armor not even the Hadaan Forges could match, strong beyond all human measure, they came from the sky and rounded entire sectors' worths of gangs up into captivity. To what end, no one really knew, but they said they were gathering soldiers for some war of theirs, there in the sky.

They were coming more often now, but if Calusi was this desperate, they had not merely come to Vilepor. They had come for them.

Hadrusbal tried to gather the crowd of the Death's Eyes, but he didn't even have the time to tell everyone to scatter, and meet at the drop two cycles later. The smart ones would have done so anyway, on their own. Unfortunately he couldn't be with them.

Instead, he walked to the front of his gang, even as the wall broke before them and giants in power armor surrounded them. They were large, far larger than any human had a right to be, and he knew from hearsay that they were tougher as well. He nodded to his subordinates as he passed them. Too few had fled - he even saw the small form of Faro near the front, wide-eyed. He'd thought the foundling cleverer than that, but after all, he was still a child.

"Well," he said, over the murmuring the men and women behind him and a couple cries, "who should I surrender to?" Delay, delay, so that someone could get away safely. And avoid violence, so that those who were captured would live to see those sky-wars. A massacre benefited no one, and by all accounts the recruiters were at least willing to talk, if not to negotiate.

"To me," said a powerful voice, and then Hadrusbal had to shield his eyes.

The being who walked in was more than a man. Large, radiant, armored in golden plate - but above all that there was his aura, an aura of authority and of mystery. Losid fell to his knees immediately. One by one, a dozen others followed him.

Hadrusbal did not, and as he watched, the aura ebbed, and the being before him was revealed as human after all - young, and still with that dominating presence, but now seemingly smaller and less oppressive. A witch, presumably, but the most powerful one Hadrusbal had ever seen, and in control of his powers as well. Dangerous, without a doubt, more dangerous than any human or beast Hadrusbal had seen in his life.

"Father," Faro said as he stepped forward.

The person before them, shockingly, knelt down, and embraced the foundling.

"My son," he said. Then, he turned to Hadrusbal. "So, may I have your surrender?"

Hadrusbal was frozen, trying to think through the implication. Faro had been unnaturally strong, of course, but they had thought - _this_ was his father? It made sense, of course. One of the sky-children fallen in a pod. Raised, for two dozen cycles, by a Hive Vilepor gang, before being taken back. Like a god falling to earth, ever so briefly.

"What terms do you offer?" his mouth asked. It was an automatic response, for Hadrusbal's conscious mind was far too far gone to consider such pedestrian matters.

"Terms?" the being asked, with some - confusion? "Well, I suppose it is worth offering them, on this day. The strongest of your male children will join the Legiones Astartes. As for the rest..."

"Leave them be, for now," Faro said, quietly, to his father. "I will return here."

And the being smiled.


	6. 1-05: Faro 3

There was a new fire in Faro now, or perhaps a further kindling of the one that already burned in him. The Emperor of Mankind was here, his father, his lord. A great many things that he had not understood were settling into his mind.

He had asked about the stars, and the Emperor had laughed and, in an indulgent mood, given him a book of the constellations, the patterns that humans had over the ages sketched out in the sky. Faro was tracing over it now, as he watched the stars outside the viewports of the Bucephelus. They were the Cthonian stars, not the Terran patterns that the book had been designed for, but Cthonia and Terra were close enough to each other that the patterns were similar.

But something else gnawed at Faro. The Emperor had said that he had known one of his sons was on the planet. But, he had said, he had not thought it would be Faro. "I had expected," he had admitted, to one of his companions, "the Primarch of the Sixteenth. Many of his Legion were recruited from Cthonia, and I had somehow thought he would have been here as well."

That was the other aspect of it - the Legions. Somehow, though Faro was very young, he already in some sense had children. The Legiones Astartes were built from the gene-code of the Primarchs. He was to lead the Third Legion, once his education was complete.

He wanted to do that, to do his true father and the rising Imperium proud. But he nevertheless retained doubt. He hadn't been the son that the Emperor had been looking for.

Well, he would be the best son and commander he could, nonetheless.

He thumbed through the book quickly - he had always been very quick, in such things. He read deep into the night of the cycle, absorbing the information as quickly as he could, and he was quite surprised when he woke up on the floor the next morning, the book still clutched in his hands.

The Emperor had come in not long after - too soon, for Faro's liking - and gave a warm chuckle at the scene, as Faro excitedly talked about the charts in the books. "Perhaps I should have started with a shorter book," he said. "Then you might have gotten a full night's sleep."

The Emperor paused as he sat down beside Faro, brushing a hand over his white hair. "In truth," he said, "the zodiacal signs are an outdated model. Once upon a time, though, they were the best we had... Which is your favorite, my son?"

Faro had liked all of them, but some more than others; he talked of the judicious and righteous Arbitos, and also of the passionate Orionad, and beautiful Deva, and Rokubungi which showed the way to the other constellations.

His father seemed pleased with his choices, but most of all with his fifth - Fulgor, the rain-bringer. "In time," he said, "you shall have twenty brothers, like the twenty zodiacal signs. Each of them has some of the character once attributed to the constellations. And it is the Fulgor that I expected you to echo." He opened the book to that page, looking at the demigod surrounded by streams of water. "The renewer."

"You said you expected to find my brother here," Faro blurted out, before immediately feeling guilty.

"I did," the Emperor admitted. "I had thought to find the dreadful Sagittary. But it is for the best that I found you instead, Faro, now that I consider it. The Sagittary is a warrior first and foremost, the supreme general, man and beast as one. But while you are also a warlord, and will lead your Legion into the stars in due time, the Fulgor above all represents rebirth, the rain that brings a harvest after a long dry season, and allows civilization to endure. You said you would return to Cthonia."

"I will," Faro said. "To fix it."

"So you will," the Emperor acknowledged. "But Cthonia is not the only world that, in Old Night, has descended into barbarism, not the only planet that needs to be 'fixed'. Some have fallen further than Cthonia. That is why we move out into the stars, Faro. During Old Night, human civilization collapsed, and worlds are even now crying out for our help. Against the tyranny, or the predation, of xenos and monsters, but also against the simple decay of worlds cut off from trade routes that were never meant to endure alone. Like Cthonia." Faro nodded, enraptured, as the Emperor brought him to the viewport. "We embark onto this Great Crusade to unite humanity - because that is the only way to save it. Imagine them! Every pinprick of light, a human culture, living free of want, of strife, of oppression. Every spark, a wonderland."

Faro thought back to Hadrusbal's words, when he had shared his own, far less ambitious dream. And even so, his hearts beat ever more rapidly with hope. "Is it possible?"

"We will make it so," the Emperor replied, with burning resolve. "Have no doubt of that, Faro. The road ahead will be difficult, without a doubt. But make no mistakes, and the stars will be ours."


	7. 1-06: Iacton 1

The rumor came about first. The Emperor had found one of his sons, it said. There was no substance to it, no detail, and yet even so the Legions were in uproar.

Iacton Qruze, Captain of the Sixteenth Legion Astartes and one of the first Cthonian recruits to said Legion, overheard it while in the practice cages at first. It was truly an unintentional interception, Rupin - ever the gossip - sharing it with Maqabaddon in a theatrical whisper that was not actually quiet enough to pass their captain's notice.

"A Primarch found?" Qruze asked, stunning both the sergeants. "Truly, brothers?"

"Has the Legion Master not told you?" Maqabaddon asked with a frown. "It's probably false, then."

"It's true," Rupin said. "But no one knows which one. The Emperor's going to do some grand debut for his son - just imagine it!"

Rupin's prediction did not come true, which, Qruze quietly noted, was hardly an unheard-of event. Instead, the truth of the matter, in all its inconvenient complexity - inconvenient, especially, for the Sixteenth Legion - was revealed to the centurion in an audience with Legion Master Minos, two Terran days after.

He had called all the captains to him, and the dozen Astartes took their undersized seats in the hall. Despite this, the atmosphere was not overly formal. There was ale, which Qruze drank his fill of, and conversation, which he partook in more moderately, and games that Qruze left alone. The games he played were tactical simulations. The Astartes were not yet as feared as the Emperor's Thunder Warriors had once been. They were untested, relatively speaking. Qruze would do his best to ensure that, when that test came, they would pass it.

Eventually, the feasting quieted down, and Legion Master Minos took his stand. He was still new to the role - the entire organization was new, really. The founding of the Legions was, in truth, still a work in progress, as their current rapid expansion showed. If Qruze survived his early years, he would be remembered as one of the Legion's early leaders.

"Brothers," Minos said. "The rumours you have heard are true. The Emperor, beloved by all, has found the first of his Primarch sons - Faro, gene-sire to the Third Legion."

Polite applause followed that, though only after a pregnant pause. The Third was drawn from the children of the nobility, and their arrogant manner would surely only worsen with a Primarch in charge. But all the same, they were a cousin Legion, and no one bore them any ill will. Qruze daydreamed, for a moment, of the time when the Sixteenth would find its own Primarch. He would be brutal, of course, and mighty, but at the same time he would also be a clever general, glorious and brilliant and magnificent, leading the Sixteenth with blade in hand and -

Well, and time would tell, in truth. Qruze knew he might not even live to see the day.

"But," Minos continued, banging the table to get his officers' attention, "there is a complication. Faro was found _on Cthonia_."

At that, suddenly, there was silence as the captains worked through what that meant.

"As such," Minos continued, "the Sixteenth Legion will no longer recruit from Cthonia. We will resume more intensive recruitment from Terra, as well as other worlds that the Great Crusade will in time bring into our glorious Imperium. But Cthonia will hereforth be the solitary recruiting ground of the Third Legion."

And at that, all hell broke loose.

Qruze sat silent in the clamor, gathering his own thoughts. The decision - not even decision, really, for it was not as if anyone had decided to drop Faro on Cthonia - but the news meant that the Legion's culture would take a mad swerve. Instead of drawing from the gangs of Cthonia, it would become... well, most likely, it would become a patchwork. Terra, populous as it was, would be straining anyhow to support the other Legions; the Sixteenth would not have the majority of recruits come from there, not anymore.

It was also curious to imagine how the gangs of Cthonia would mesh with the aristocratic principles of the Third Legion. When Verid asked him his opinion about the changes, Qruze answered by citing his interest in seeing said transformation.

Verid laughed. "Always seeing the bright side, eh?" he said, clapping his battle-brother on the back.

"It is not as if this end of the Legion, anyhow," Qruze said. "We were never based at Cthonia, and most of us are still Terran."

"Will you not miss it?" Verid asked.

"I barely even remember Cthonia," Qruze told the Terran captain, ''and what I remember I don't particularly remember liking. Besides which, the Third Legion are our cousins, and part of the same Unity that we fight for; envy of them ill-befits us. It is hardly a cause for panic, brother. Merely a change, due to the coincidences of the cosmos."

Qruze stopped, and realized that the entire room was staring at him.

Minos broke the silence. "Well said!" he declared. "This is no cause for anger, but for celebration. The first of the Emperor's sons has been found - the first herald of a new age!"

That broke the ice, and soon Qruze was raising cups of ale with the others, drinking to a new and better age for the Imperium. They were young, they were mighty, and soon they would head into the stars to bring mankind together once again.

"Still," Verid grumbled as they left the assembly under strict orders not to share too many details with their men, "it's just typical that it's the Third that gets their Primarch first. Not the savages of the Twelfth, not the scholars of the Fifteenth, not the soldiers of the Eighteenth. No, it's the bloody nobles."

"They are a cousin Legion," Qruze objected.

"They are," Verid said. "And they're going to be completely insufferable after this."


	8. 1-07: Thrallas 1

In these moments, it seemed like the entire universe was ripe for the taking.

"The day has come," Legion Master Thrallas of the Third whispered to himself, as he performed the kata. There was no opponent; the challenge was merely to perform the motions both perfectly and quickly. It was far easier now than it had ever been as the heir to House Walldich, to do so, and therefore he accelerated to a pace that he could never have matched when he had been merely human.

He would not remain Legion Master for long. The fact of this did not please him, not entirely. He had excelled in the trials, both those of body and those of mind - he had been born for command. He would retain command, of course, but he would be only a Lord Commander and his primarch's right hand. It was still a monumental position, but a lesser responsibility, and it felt uncomfortably like a demotion.

But at the same time, he could not truly force himself to feel anger at this change. He had always known that he would yield his command to another in due time, and Faro was the Emperor's own gene-son, so far above him as to make comparison meaningless. It would be a dereliction of Thrallas's duty to his men not to stand aside, even had there not been orders.

It was all a welcome island of excitement in a sea of logistic work. The Legions, the Third among them, had fought in minor campaigns, but they had not yet been truly unleashed. The Unification Wars had been waged by the Emperor's Thunder Warriors, who were mighty but aggressive to the point where they could not be trusted. The Legiones Astartes had been created for the Great Crusade to come, a more balanced force of conquest for a more diverse universe. The Thunder Warriors had been left to their obsolescence, youths like Thrallas raised to the Legions or the Custodes rather than subjected to the torturous chem-augmentations of the Thunder Warriors.

But before they would exit history's stage, the Thunder Warriors' great work would be completed, and the last foes of the Emperor that still drew breath on Terra would be exterminated. The still-mighty defenses of the Panpacific Empire, the nearly intact tyranny of the Yndonesic Bloc, the mad rebels of Franc, the cults around Ararat. There was a lull now, as the remaining powers consolidated their forces, but the last battles of the Unification Wars were coming, and Thrallas had to be ready.

His Legion had to be ready, too. And so Thrallas completed the kata, bringing himself back to reality, wiped his sweat off, and greeted his agitated equerry outside the practice halls.

"Etrax," he said. "Have orders come, then?"

"None," Etrax acknowledged, as the Astartes walked side-by-side. "However, it seems that they soon will, for Malcador the Sigillite has sent a summons to you, for tomorrow."

Thrallas nodded, with a smile he could not suppress. "Let us hope the news is good, then," he said.

"If I may," Etrax said with a frown, "it is likely to be the ascension of Faro to command."

"Perhaps," Thrallas said. "And what of it?"

"Nothing, I - "

"Brother," Thrallas said to his subordinate, "something is discomfiting you."

"You are taking this with grace," Etrax said. "But you deserve to remain Legion Master. You are of the line of Wal, firstborn and heir - and what is more, you have been greatest in every test of mettle you have faced. I am not alone in thinking this, brother. A protest must be recorded."

Thrallas sighed. "I am of the line of Wal, aye," he acknowledged. "Faro is of the line of the Emperor himself. Would you deny that his lineage is greater?" Not giving Etrax a chance to respond, he rolled on. "And I may have triumphed over you on the tests of aptitude, but the primarchs are built to be cleverer still. In any case, I will remain there to counsel him, if necessary. Besides which, in the true test of battle, both of us have barely been bloodied. And all that aside, it is the Emperor's order that his son shall take command of the Third Legion. Would you gainsay that?"

"No," Etrax said immediately. "Do not doubt my loyalty, brother."

"Should I doubt the loyalty of any among those others you mentioned?"

Etrax took a moment to think. Thrallas liked this about his equerry, that he was able to solidly weigh the heavy consideration that some decisions required, while responding with impressive speed on the spot. "Speak to them as you spoke to me," he eventually said.

"Good," Thrallas said. The Third Legion's reputation needed to be perfect, and he would not suffer any of his brothers arguing the Emperor's will; but he could sway them, he was sure, so long as they were merely disgruntled and not disloyal. "And think of it, Etrax. Our legion shall be the first to reunite with its primarch, the first to be led by a son of the Emperor himself! Imagine what victories he will lead us to. We will be first among the Astartes - and such collective glory of the Legion is greater than individual glory by far. As the collective glory of the Imperium is greater still."

"Understood," Etrax said, and his expression said clearly enough that he understood the implied rebuke as well. But he did not speak up, and Thrallas could tell, too, that he had taken his words to heart, and believed them.

Thrallas believed that Faro of Cthonia would prove worthy of that trust. But, on some level, he had to admit that he could not yet be certain.


	9. 1-08: Faro 4

In the first months after coming to Terra, Faro spent his time, above all, reading.

There were many ways of conveying information. Yet the written word, one of the first among them, retained some primacy because it combined ease of production with ease of consumption. Of course, few now used the styluses of yore, which the Emperor had shown images of to Faro; but they still wrote, and so Faro read. Histories, discourses, scientific tracts, architectural guides - he had been thrown into a new world, and so he tried to understand fully that world before playing his part in improving it.

It quickly became evident that, unlike with Hive Vilepor, _complete_ understanding was impossible. Terra's history was impossibly complicated, a tapestry woven of threads left over of ancient lords' garments. The recorded history of Terra spanned tens of thousands of years, and too many of the wonders it described could not be reproduced, and some may well have been myths. And human civilization had covered millions of worlds in its most recent bloom, each capable of filling countless libraries of its own.

Before the collapse. Before Old Night.

And now, as the Warp Storms that impeded interstellar travel receded, the Emperor had unified Terra to lead humanity into a new golden age, one that would last forever. And as Faro came to understand that, to see the faint outlines of the Emperor's grand plan, he saw, too, what was needed of him. The forging of the Imperium would require diplomats, warriors, and stewards alike, and Faro was meant to be all three.

With his curiosity ameliorated by duty, then, Faro continued his lessons, but also paid more attention to his surroundings, above all the people. The Emperor was kept busy by rule, and while he made sure to spend time with Faro, the young primarch was often left to his own devices.

The day his partial isolation ended, Faro was stalking around in the shadows, following a conversation of two auxilia generals that did not notice him. The Custodes could do so with ease, of course; Faro was good at hiding, but even though he would grow stronger than the Custodes in time, he doubted he would ever be able to evade their gaze. But the Custodes, upon instruction from the Emperor, did not interrupt Faro's wanderings, though neither did they indulge his curiosity.

"We need a campaign against Tang," one of the generals, a blond mustachioed man wearing a uniform with abundant decoration, said. "The Panpacific Empire is broken, Dume a broken man. He will be a tough nut to crack, but Tang alone remains a threat."

"If Dume were dead I would agree with you," the other general, an elderly dark-skinned woman with a plainer uniform, replied. "But he is alive, and who among us can understand the workings of Dume's mind? While the enemy is reeling, that is when one strikes. As to Tang, he is no threat, for he has no means to attack us."

"He might gain one," the first general protested. "But the Emperor will decide, regardless."

"He already has," a voice came, and then Malcador the Sigillite was before them.

He looked an elderly man, flowing white hair spilling from a hooded coat, leaning on his ornate staff of office. But Faro knew him, if very distantly, as his father's closest advisor, a figure that demanded instant respect. Faro had overheard tales that he commanded assassin squads for the Emperor, leading them disguised by his psychic abilities. When he had asked the Emperor about it, later, his father had laughed and said only that Malcador was indeed more than he seemed.

"Lord Sigillite," the younger general immediately said, giving a deep bow. The older general did the same, albeit more carefully.

"General Awimaprasin," Malcador said, "General Umo. And Primarch Faro of Cthonia - yes, I _do_ see you."

Slightly reddening, Faro came up to the assembly, giving a bow of his own to Malcador. The flustered generals immediately bowed to him as well, with shocked respect. Faro was not sure what he thought of that. He was a primarch, and grew quickly, but still - he was undoubtedly a boy rather than a man, still, and had not yet begun his true work. To have them bow to him due to his heritage was one thing, but he could feel that some of the respect he earned was due to something more than that.

"It is good that you are gathered like this," Malcador said. "We will have a war council tomorrow, at Samal, to discuss the details; but we are not striking at the Yndonesic Bloc, not yet. Neither are we finishing Dume's empire."

The older general frowned. "Yet we are beginning a campaign."

"We are," Malcador confirmed. "Several campaigns, but above all - Luna."

"Thunder Warriors or us?" the older general immediately asked. "Or shall this be the Astartes' debut?"

"The council is tomorrow," Malcador repeated. "Dismissed."

The generals bowed to him, or perhaps to Faro, again, and left. Malcador beckoned Faro to stay.

"If you would walk with an old man..." he said.

"You're not truly old, though," Faro said with a frown.

"I am. Oh, I am not so frail as I appear, and I may live for centuries yet; but I have seen so, so very much." Malcador switched his grip on the staff. "As has the Emperor. You should remember that."

"I will," Faro said. Was Malcador seeking to emphasize his experience, and how much Faro had to learn?

"So I hope," Malcador said. "Anyhow, how are you finding Terra?"

Faro took a moment to decide on his answer. "Vast," he eventually said. "There is so much history and detail to everything, both what is in the past and in the future."

"Cthonia is an old world," Malcador began, thoughtfully. "It was colonized by some of the first sublight ships, when humanity did not yet travel the Warp. Its history is not much shorter than Terra's. Yet Cthonia does not remember that history, and Terra does." The Sigillite shook his head. "I say Terra does, but I mean to say we do. The Yndonesic Bloc, and the other rebel holdouts, know as much about the past as the Cthonian gangs."

"I should re-compile Cthonia's history," Faro said.

"Perhaps you should," Malcador said with a small smile. "Though not even you could do such a thing alone... For now, we need to discuss the council, and the etiquette thereof."

They walked, now, through undecorated halls, only recently carved out of the rock. Malcador was still acting in what Faro recognized as a grandfatherly manner, though in truth he did not know whether the Sigillite was any older than his father. He had not had reason to consider his father's age, in truth. "There is so much to seek," Faro said. "I hardly know where to start."

And Malcador stopped at a bend in the tunnel, and looked back at Faro, his lined face seeming to age a hundred years in an instant.

"Start with war," he said, "and you will not be disappointed."


	10. 1-09: Thrallas 2

Six of the Legion Masters either already were or would soon be in attendance. With them were ten generals of the Imperial auxilia, the foremost non-transhuman forces of the Unification Wars. Umo, and Omarov, and Metteshche, legends all -

And yet Thrallas's gaze was fixed on the head of the table, where the Emperor of Mankind sat to head the war council, his form protean as ever. At his right hand was Malcador the Sigillite, who everyone in the room regarded with wary respect, no matter that physically he seemed the frailest of them all.

And at the Emperor's left hand, there was a violet-eyed boy of perhaps ten Terran years, his white hair tied into a ponytail, dressed in golden-colored robes.

Well before the Emperor presented him, Thrallas knew that he was Faro of Cthonia.

 _He is a child_ , one part of Thrallas said. Another said that Thrallas had himself been a child, not too long ago. But before those parts could resolve their disagreement, Malcador finished his briefing with an announcement of the Imperium's next enemy - the monstrous Selenar cults of Luna, whose gene-lore had assisted in the invention of the Astartes themselves but who had fallen under the sway of Cardinal Tang.

And then the Emperor rose, and the room became deathly still.

"Primarch Faro of Cthonia," he said.

There were nods at that. Thrallas thought of Cthonia, which he'd had little reason to consider before now. A world of gangers, whose savagery had caused recruiting shuttles to round them up as recruits for the Imperium.

His unease, now released from its firewalls, ballooned. And then Faro spoke.

"Legion Masters," he said, "Generals. I am still young, and new to the Imperium, and so I may not yet have much to add to your accumulated wisdom of the great men and women gathered here. Perhaps, for now, the best role for me to play is as an outsider with a young perspective, the naive naysmith who points out the simple flaws of complex plans. Past that, I am, for now, here to learn." He swept his eyes over the room, fixing Thrallas's gaze in particular for a few moments. "But this, I do know: that with this war, the Imperium will first go beyond Terra. Our first step out into the vastness of the cosmos, our first world to cure! This is a campaign that will be remembered, in all annals of the Imperium to come. Take heart, in the magnitude of what we are attempting here."

Thrallas's heart lifted as Faro spoke, not from the words but from the spirit in which they were said. The generals, he could see, were prouder still, for it was their achievements that Faro had emphasized. But it would be his right, in time, to serve under this commander. Still a boy, for now, but despite his origins he was no savage, nor a fool. If this was Faro at ten, Thrallas looked forward to serving under his primarch as an adult.

"Well, if this campaign will be remembered forever," Malcador said, defusing the pause, "it would be good if it was remembered as a victory."

Thrallas took a glance around at the gathered Legion Masters. Aside from himself, there were Mathias of the Seventh, DuCaine of the Tenth, Lhorke of the Twelfth, Vosotho of the Thirteenth, and Minos of the Sixteenth. A varied assortment of Legions, but then Thrallas did not have the Emperor's knowledge of the Legions' gene-seed. Or, perhaps, the variety was the objective, under a combined-arms doctrine.

"Then," a woman that Thrallas took a moment to place as General Umo said, "I take it the Thunder Warriors will not be taking part, so I'd say the Legions should take the fore."

General Omarov nodded. "The auxilia would better fit the diversionary assaults on Terra."

That broke the ice. Soon ideas were being thrown back and forth. Three Legions would assault Luna, it was decided, a direct demonstration of the Astartes' power - numerically not a massive force, avoiding strain to Terra's industry in raising them to orbit. The auxilia and other Legions would launch minor, diversionary assaults on Tang's Yndonesic Bloc and the Panpacific Empire's remnants.

The Legion Masters each volunteered their force for the assault, of course, Thrallas among them. They had prepared for long enough; it was time to be loosed. The Emperor, before making a decision, called for a debate on how the campaign would be conducted, so as to play to the Legions' strengths.

The defense grid of the Selenar cultists was the first, and frankly foremost, obstacle. Humanity had long forgotten how to fight in the void, but anti-air cannons were easy enough to make, and the Selenar, with nearly uncontested control of Luna, were focused on defending against that avenue of assault. Better gunships... were, unfortunately, not available.

"But how," Legion Master Minos asked, "do they know what to shoot?"

"Auspex grids, of course," General Awimaprasin said. "You think that we can fool them?"

"They won't know what to expect - "

"If we mask the heat signatures - "

"Another diversion, to pave the way - "

A plan quickly developed. The first Legion to attack would fly in by stealth, while the other two would openly bring up the rear, drawing inaccurate fire while the speartip Legion would land unnoticed. Then, they would destroy the orbital defenses, allowing the others to close and land. Diversion on top of diversion, in sum.

Yet any means of void-based stealth were untested. A dozen proposals were put ahead, half of them shot down by incisive queries from Faro, the other half retracted by their original proponents. It was the Emperor who finally gave the answer. "They will be powered down, to minimize energy signatures," he said, gesturing to a ship model on the table. "We do not have the means to produce a stealth system worthy of this campaign, not in time. We cannot deflect their gaze, so we will become transparent to it."

Malcador smirked. "It won't be too comfortable," he said, "but it could work. It _has_ worked, before. Back to tomb ships it is. Ha!"

There were a few further questions, and a few streamlining edits by the Emperor, but soon enough he nodded, ready to announce the task force. The XVI would have the honor of the speartip assault, while the XIII and Thrallas's own III would form the support force. The other Legions were detached to Terra, a situation that Lhorke was less than happy about but accepted.

And after that, as the council receded, Thrallas found himself alone with his gene-father, who seemed a decade younger than him, for the first time.

"It is an honor to finally meet you, lord," he said.

Faro nodded. "The honor is mine," he said. "The day when I command you is years away still. So tell me of, er, your brothers, Legion Master."

And as they walked, Thrallas's uncertainty and awkwardness gradually waned. He talked of the Third Legion as it was, a warrior brotherhood that had seen battle only twice, leading the auxilia in minor engagements against Dume's empire, proud and hungry and ambitious. Faro took it in, smiling, and Thrallas could tell that visions of future victories were flashing across his retinas.

And from the corner of his eye, Thrallas thought he could see the Emperor smile behind them.


	11. 1-10: Iacton 2

The plan of the tomb ships had, no doubt, seemed brilliant when the Emperor had put it forward. And Iacton Qruze had to admit that it probably was. The Emperor's brilliance was one of the Imperium's cornerstones. But while he trusted the calculations of his sovereign, commanding the battle from the distant _Bucephelus_ , to deliver them to the moon's surface, he also suspected that Legion Master Minos was cursing his own eagerness to be at the attack's tip.

Ice coated his armor, and his movements were slow and ungainly compared to the ease he was used to, in training. Yet without gravity, that was enough to haul his floating bulk along the bulkheads, leading his brothers into the assault craft. Some of them were rather less phlegmatic than him; though they kept vox-silence, their movements showed their frustration clearly.

Qruze could see, outside, the void of space, covered by the Lunar horizon, the labyrinths of city grids shooting past. He stood in the gunship's center, holding onto its roof and feeling its vibrations - with the space emptied of atmosphere, he could hear nothing, which was the only reason the gunship wasn't creaking at the rivets.

He wondered if the Emperor could have made a mistake in his calculations. More likely, he decided, was that Minos would err in transcribing them. But he trusted his Legion Master, as he had to.

Nevertheless, it was a relief when the countdown flashed before his eyes, and Qruze smashed the activation rune. Lights flashed, as Maqabaddon and Shaiv together slid the door shut, having to brace themselves awkwardly to do it in time. Then it was done, and they were falling upward, and then spinning, still surrounded by darkness.

The moon's surface grew ever closer, and they clipped the edge of a building as they came down. But as Qruze fully reactivated his armor, he noted that the Astartes were unharmed, the stratagem of the tomb ships proving a masterstroke.

"This was a mistake," Vekan voxed. "We could have easily been in a thousand pieces, unable to do anything about it."

"Victory requires risk," Qruze answered. "And sometimes, it requires sacrifice. We are warriors, brothers, and there is not so much difference between being felled by a falling ship or by a lucky sniper. But today, our duty is merely to ensure that the risk pays off." He looked out the window to recognize that they would stop near a building at the edge of a hill, a massive turret that was nonetheless unable to shoot them due to their proximity. "Our objective is to disable the orbital defenses."

He rattled off the targets, the first being the building they now kissed, taking a look around to cement the schematics he remembered with the practical visuals. And then they had halted, and Qruze had to stop himself and give the order to disembark.

They charged into the building, gray ceramite deflecting a couple of desperate shots. It was, more or less, a massacre. The defenders ran more than they fought, even the armed once.

It was cowardly, a dereliction of duty, but Qruze was thankful for it, because it was the enemy that was doing it.

Vekan attached a charge to the main cannon, before slipping and falling to the ground below. With his power armor, he landed barely bruised, even as the cannon blew to shrapnel above him.

"East next," Qruze ordered, pointing out the next target. "Deremat? Dontolar?" He frowned as a bead popped up on his display. "Minos?"

"On the ground," the Legion Master responded. "Captain Qruze, where are you?"

Qruze sent his coordinates. Minos responded with his.

For now, though, it was Qruze's own company that he tried to gather. They were scattered across the defensive line, and if they had met serious resistance... but they hadn't. There were some human troopers shooting with las-weapons that might have burned the paint off Qruze's armor, had it had any. It took minutes to shut down the entire line, chaotic minutes over which the civilians wisely fled, leaving the Astartes in command of the area.

It was shortly after Qruze had finally re-established contact with Dontolar, the last of his sergeants, that the Selenar responded. The enemy came at them from below, monsters whose screams seemed to come as much from pain as from anger, metal spines driven into or perhaps growing out of their backs. They grabbed onto the Astartes, dragging them down despite their armor.

They were strong, but they fought without intelligence and without cooperation. Qruze stabbed one in the head as it grappled with Vekan, its spines rattling one final time before it fell. Then he felt the weight of another of the - beast, really - upon him, but Maqabaddon threw it off and into another of the abominations. They immediately started scratching each other, training forgotten in the throes of rage.

"I hope they were never human," Dontolar said, coming up to his captain.

"That's irrelevant," Qruze said. "Though I hope so, as well."

A gunline shredded the monsters' last charge. Then, Qruze urged his men onwards, leaving smoking ruins in their wake. Only two of his men had sustained substantial injuries, and they were still well enough to fight.

"All orbital defenses down," Minos reported. "Converge on my position."

"What's the objective?" Qruze asked, though he already suspected the answer. The briefing had been that the XVI would have latitude to act according to circumstances, once the defenses were disabled. With the overwhelming victory, the next objective was obvious.

"We have permission from the _Bucephelus_ ," Minos said, almost laughing. "The command bunkers, Brother-Captain. We will end this war before the day is out."


	12. 1-11: Faro 5

Outside the hull of the _Bucephelus_ , the stars glimmered still. Between them, two disks, which from the flagship's current position seemed of comparable size. Both were gray with civilization, half lit by the rays of Sol, the other half by the lights of its people.

In both cases, a fair fraction of those lights were the fires of war.

Faro understood why it had to be so. The state of the last envoy to the Selenar proved that there could not, at present, be peace between Terra and Luna.

Nonetheless, he did regret that it was necessary. He knew that his father did as well, as did Malcador. The goal of bringing humanity back together required that blood be spilled, for all that means had to never become end. No, the galaxy was not simply a larger version of Cthonia, these wars were waged for something greater; but all the same, he had - not hoped, but imagined...

He felt his father's presence before he saw him. It was a sharp-edged storm, meticulously coordinating the possible paths of war. Sometimes Faro could perceive his father's psychic aura as a comfort, and sometimes it was a thing of deliberate terror, but right now there seemed to be little concern in it, little... humanity, one might say.

Yet the Emperor's voice was as warm as it had ever been when he greeted his son. "The Sixteenth Legion have been sent ahead to take the bunkers," he said. "Thrallas and Vosotho have both reported successful landings. What would you do next?"

Faro took a few moments to bring up a hololith of the surface war. While the anti-air defenses had been taken down, Luna's defenders still held control over most of the Circuit. The great valley, in which most of the gene-cults had their headquarters, was impeccably fortified, and its walls even now thundered, trying to trap the Third and Thirteenth in a crossfire. They would not succeed, however, because too many strongpoints were already in the Astartes' hands.

The true treasures of Luna, though, were underground. There the Sixteenth Legion descended, storming the Selenar bunkers. Auspex readings were less reliable in the catacombs, and so Faro did not know how exactly the assault was proceeding. He was not sure if the Emperor had any better data.

After a pause to lay fresh eyes on the battle, Faro nodded. "We have the initiative," he said, "but the Sixteenth has ranged far ahead. The Selenar may not pose a threat to them, but we cannot be certain. I would have the Sixteenth reinforce their current positions, while the Third and Thirteenth link up here, and storm this region together - at that point, the three Selenar hosts will be cut off from each other. Any counterattack from the depths will be stopped by the Sixteenth. Once the Circuit is secure, I would have the Sixteenth and one of its brother Legions - "

"Which one?" the Emperor asked, curious.

Faro bit his lip, trying to consider the question objectively. "The Third," he eventually said. "Better-suited to the assault, I think, while the Thirteenth is better-suited to pacifying the surface. But then, it might create the image of favoritism... either decision would."

The Emperor nodded. "That," he said, "is why you must work with the other Legions as well. You will only have direct authority over the Third, but other Astartes must see you with respect too."

Faro nodded. "Anyhow, after that I would launch a full assault on the bunkers. The Selenar will be cut off, but they must not be given the time to recover. We should be able to win within days."

"We are," the Emperor acknowledged. "Your plan is tactically sound, Faro, and it grants us the greatest chance of winning the war. But it is not the plan I will follow."

Faro was not surprised, though his father's words still wounded him somewhat. "Why not, then?" he asked.

"Because there are other objectives."

"We want Luna fully intact," Faro immediately realized. "And non-rebellious."

The Emperor swept his hand along the hololith, indicating the Sixteenth Legion's positions and their prospective advance - their immediate advance. "That," he said, "and I wish to test the Astartes, and to show their power. I have ordered the Sixteenth to advance on the command bunkers immediately, with the Third and Thirteenth providing support."

Faro understood the strategy. It had the potential of winning the war within hours, but not without risk. "If they succeed," he said, wrapping his mind around the matter, "the Selenar spirits will be broken. The rest of Luna will kneel without bloodshed, without cannonfire shredding its laboratories. And the tale of how the Legiones Astartes took their first world in ten hours will be told as a founding legend of the Imperium." He frowned. "The loss is in tactical elegance, and casualties, but those costs are not vast. Only, if the assault fails..."

"It will not fail," the Emperor said without doubt. "Not against this foe. Sometimes, Faro, we must trust the men under our command."

So it was. Thrallas, Faro remembered, was uncertain about many things, but not about his skill or his strength. The Astartes were proud of their martial ability.

The battle of Luna proved them entirely right in that pride.

And Faro, too, felt a swelling of satisfaction as Thrallas's men stormed barricade after barricade. The Sixteenth were at the tip of the assault, but the lesser defenses they left behind were swept aside by the Third and Thirteenth. The front was like a fire, a vast blaze with tongues rushing ahead in disorganized fashion that nevertheless could not help but sweep over everything in its way.

It was not beautiful, not even in the way that war could be beautiful. It was dubious, even, whether it could be deemed glorious. But undoubtedly, the fall of Luna was efficient. The message came seven hours after the first Astartes had landed on Luna, sent directly to the _Bucephelus_ by the most powerful channel the Selenar could find.

It was a desperate cry, steeped in defeat and panic, seasoned by the recognition that the Astartes were superior to all the multifaceted abominations the geno-cults crafted.

It was a surrender.

"Call off your wolves!"


	13. 1-12: Severian 1

For the Third and the Thirteenth, the euphoria of Luna's conquest passed quickly. It was a great victory, but the first of many, so it was said. The Third had its primarch found, even if he was still only a child, and they looked forth to the day when he would lead them; for the Thirteenth Luna had been a first blooding, and though they would remember it well, they too felt it only as a beginning.

But the Sixteenth had been the point of the assault. Severian had not been there, the same as most of his cadre - scouts who had not yet completed their implantation process - but every one of them had heard the tales. The Sixteenth Legion had made the Selenar kneel in seven hours, with an unrelenting storm of savage slaughter. Luna had been spared the carnage of the Unification Wars, while the madmen that had tortured Imperial emissaries had paid for it with their lives.

A year on, the pride of taking Luna still burned brightly in Severian's brothers. The Luna Wolves, they referred to the Sixteenth as, more and more often. An informal name, but one that no one seemed to object to, within the Legion or outside it.

A year of training, and preparation, and the final stages of implantation. And now Severian stood a full Astarte of the Sixteenth Legion, and looked to the stars, and wondered when they'd finally get there.

He felt a hand clap him on the shoulder, but the smell had already told him who it was.

"Yujavriel," he said without turning. "So they have released you?"

"A minor wound, nothing more," his friend said. "Though, you know, I feared the Selenar were apt to take their revenge."

"They are compliant," Severian said, turning to face the other Astarte. Yujavriel was Cthonian where Severian was Terran, yet they looked uncannily alike, in their severe features. Yujavriel was the more talkative of the pair, but not by so much as to be an annoyance. "I would hope they are loyal as well."

"A matter for the Emperor and Legion Master," Yujavriel said.

"Indeed," Severian agreed. "Though it might have become one for us had the gene-cults betrayed us."

Yujavriel smiled and sat down on the roof, alongside Severian. There was not much visible in the sky above Terra, even in this darkened region. Dume's Panpacific Empire had lost this patch of ground days ago, enough time to put out the fires but not enough to restore power. The front had moved onwards, to be carried on mostly by the auxilia. The enemy was reeling, though, in any case. And after, only the Yndonesic Bloc would pose a true challenge. Isolated enclaves of resistance were still scattered across Terra, but Captain Verid had told them that he expected the Unification Wars to end within two or three years.

"Unity," Severian mused. "It is almost here. We are almost ready to walk among those stars... Of course, looking forward too much will that will get us killed before we have that chance."

"Ever the pessimist," Yujavriel said, shaking his head.

"You were the one that worried during Luna!"

"I was not worried," Yujavriel said. "But I doubted, yes. I have learned my lesson."

"The Selenar were human," said a third voice, walking up to them. Severian wasn't the closest friend of Mopaddal's, but he was thankful for the ale the Cthonian was often ready to share, and for the wild stories he told, which derived from his wanderings in the orbitals and conversations with spacers. "There are worse things among the stars."

"Xenos," Yujavriel said. "You believe the stories?"

"They're consistent enough," Mopaddal answered. "There be monsters out there, things a great deal worse than the Selenar."

Severian grunted doubtfully.

"Why do you think we were made?" Mopaddal asked. "The auxilia could've handled Luna alone."

"Not as easily," Yujavriel pointed out.

Mopaddal ignored him. "Mirror-beasts and mind-drinkers and a whole lot of brutes. I've heard talk of green fungi going around with axes."

"Fungi?" Severian asked dubiously. Mopaddal's tales were interesting, but often fanciful. Severian didn't doubt the galaxy was full of horrors, but he doubted it was quite so full of threats as the rumors said. It was always easy to paint leviathans at the edges of a map, without explaining why they hadn't devoured everything already.

"Well, _that_ one might have been a fiction," Mopaddal admitted. "Anyhow, I'm not here for all that. We're getting our assignments tomorrow, to squad and company."

"And wing," Severian muttered.

"No, not to wings," Mopaddal said.

"What?"

"The Hexagrammaton is being phased out, Severian," Yujavriel reminded him. "At least outside the First Legion."

"Ah. Of course." He felt a little foolish for forgetting that. "Outside the First? Oh, I take it the First is too proud of its heritage to let the past go, of course."

The chuckles from Yujavriel and Mopaddal told him he was entirely correct.

"To the stars!" Mopaddal yelled, raising his cup in that direction. "One more campaign, brothers. One more campaign, and we will begin."

And Severian let out a toothy grin, because at that very moment a smoke cloud drifted southwards, and among the field of sparks there was revealed a great gray crescent.

"We've already begun," he said, and howled in exultation.


	14. 1-13: Abdemon 1

The building loomed ahead of Abdemon, or perhaps it was more accurate to say that the entire cliff face did so, as a singular whole. Luna awaited, and within it his coming transformation.

The cadre were quiet. All of them knew that a new chapter of their lives were beginning. They were all children of nobility, and so they all knew of the Legiones Astartes. All the same, none had more than broad strokes, for the Legions were new.

The descent had been smooth, far moreso than the launch from Terra, during which most of the recruits had lost consciousness. But in the silence, excitement and fear only rang more brightly than ever in the heart of every child in the cadre. They had left their families and lands to become warriors like nothing Terra had ever seen before.

If any of them knew more than Abdemon about what awaited them, they did not say so. He had tried early to get familiar with the others. Some rebuffed him - Jaspen Kellagh being the worst of them. His heritage was the most illustrious of them all, but to Abdemon's gaze the boy was a disappointment to his line. He should have understood that they were all to fight together.

Others were friendlier. Pret Shevland, though his house was among the most influential in northern Europa, laughed with them without a trace of condescension, treating them as the equals they nominally were. And Onon Ryrrh was of a minor family in the Atlantik lowlands, and quiet, but Abdemon had quickly befriended him for his insight.

But even he did not know what to expect.

As they walked the streets of Luna, shepherded by a silent Astarte in unpainted armor, Abdemon had taken in the land around them. The scars of the seven-hour war were still visible, a year later. They were carved into the terrain, craters dug by ordnance both Imperial and Selenar, but Abdemon could note it also in the wide berth their group was given.

"They cower," Kellagh said with a smirk. "They know we are their betters."

"They do not cower before us," Ryrrh spoke up. "They cower before _him_."

Kellagh scoffed, but aside from a snide remark, he did not argue against Ryrrh's point. Perhaps he was not as bad as Abdemon had thought.

Yet they did not speak much, until the point when they were ushered into the cliff-face building, and in a great hall the Legion Master of the Third, Thrallas Walldich, gazed down on them from a richly decorated but crumbling balcony - announced as such by the first words their guardian spoke.

"Initiates!" he said. "You come here as scions of various families, as children of houses - some legendary, some feared, some feuding. You will leave those legends, those fears, and those feuds behind!" He swept the room with a glare. "From this day forth, the only blood in your veins that matters is that of the Emperor. With Luna subdued, recruitment for the Legions is accelerating; but I will not allow that to lower our standards. From today, everyone in this room is your brother! And if you do not accept that, I give you one last chance to leave and keep your life. I will not lie and say there is no shame in that, but there is no treason."

No one left. Perhaps if the speech had not been given by a Walldich, a couple of the more haughty initiates might have stirred - though, naturally, their families would have paid the price for it, not in blood, but in wealth and prestige and influence. But hearing Thrallas Walldich espouse meritocracy somehow caused even Kellagh to listen.

Thrallas's gaze softened. "Good," he said. "I do not ask you to forget your past, of course. But the future we are building will put even the greatest Terran dynasty's accomplishments to shame. Apothecary Tethczy, lead them on."

Tethczy nodded, turning to them as Thrallas left his pulpit. "Follow me," he said softly. "And do not forget those words. You are all brothers now."

It didn't quite feel that way. But as Abdemon looked up at the balcony, he realized why the Legion Master had not chosen a more intact stage for his speech. The balcony was caved in, yes, but the shells that had done so were Astarte ordnance. Third Legion, most likely, though there was no way to tell for sure.

This building, too, was a symbol of what they would achieve - both in beauty, and in ruin.


	15. 1-14: Thrallas 3

The Panpacific Empire of Narthan Dume had fought to the end, with a dogged brilliance that Thrallas had to admit deserved some respect. But while Dume's genius might have proven enough against any mortal commander, it had achieved nothing but delay against the Emperor.

And now, the time so dearly bought was coming to an end.

The Third Legion had not been deployed in large numbers. Rather, Thrallas and select squads of the Third accompanied the Tupelov Lancers auxilia, as commanders and elite strike forces.

The combination of those two points caused some debate.

"Lord Thrallas," Colonel Komerin protested, "you need not risk yourself. The Thunder Warriors have crushed the southern barricades; the situation is not desperate. Or, rather, it is desperate, but only for our foe."

Thrallas pursed his lips. It wasn't a matter of desperation, of course; but Komerin's reluctance to have him gone was reminiscent of... oh.

"It is a matter of differing cultures, I think," he said, relieved that the colonel hadn't been playing politics. "In your regiment, the commander leads from the rear, and when necessary fights with a reserve. There is no shame in that, but it is not how the Astartes were designed."

Komerin frowned, but nodded. "So you lead from the front in every battle?"

"More or less," Thrallas acknowledged, as he waited for the signal.

"Sooner or later," Komerin noted, "you won't make it."

"Sooner or later, I will fall," Thrallas acknowledged. "But then, that is what we were built for."

Before Komerin could respond, the flare went up, and Thrallas was running. Around him, the Lancers' mechanized steeds pounded the crumbled pavement, kicking up cobbles, so quickly that even the Astartes were hard-pressed to keep up.

Capitolia had been the sole nerve center of Dume's empire, but it had fallen to the Thunder Warriors almost a decade ago. The Panpacific warlord had retreated to Contingence, with the tattered remnants of his army. And after, he had waged one last brilliant campaign that Thrallas expected would be studied by tacticians for centuries. At Yotok, it had looked for a moment like -

Well, it didn't matter anymore. They were inside the walls of Contingence. "Lavan," Thrallas ordered, "take your men and scout the eastern flank; Yordanov, the western. Unyliko, spread out, and send someone to take the emplacement at the intersection of Lan and Mu - if we don't do that soon, it will hold up the western advance."

Scattered shots bounced off Thrallas's armor without effect. The Lancers fared slightly worse, but even they were whooping as they cut down the few Panpacific soldiers not running or surrendering. They were disciplined, though, laying down a wicked crossfire and retaining their elaborate formations even while charging at barricades. He'd have nothing but praise for their performance, after the campaign. There were rumors that the Emperor would be reducing the auxilia's side after Terra was conquered, and Colonel Komerin had made clear his concern about the matter, but at the moment Thrallas suspected that was only paranoia.

"Forward!" he yelled. "Lavan, hold this sector. Callim, brother, remain here as well. Everyone else, with me! For the Emperor!"

"For the Emperor!" came the cry in response, and the Tupelov Lancers swept down in a surge of flesh and metal. By now barely anyone was resisting them, with only rogue shots glancing off the Lancers' visors, but still Thrallas pushed forward, for what he saw ahead.

The glint of gold, and the aura that only one man in the Imperium had.

When Thrallas could see him at last, he had to hold back the urge to fall on his knees immediately. Some of the Lancers couldn't resist, though fortunately they stayed ahorse. The Emperor of Mankind was truly as magnificent as the most outlandish legends said, at war. Several times the height of a mortal man, golden sword wreathed in fire, he swept aside Dume's most elite troops with contempt. Around him, the Custodes impaled the defenders on their spears, forming a protective phalanx that was thoroughly unnecessary. They were a small tongue of gold on a field of Dume's leaden-plated troops, but they were a redoubt that could not be broken.

But even as Thrallas ran at the Panpacific flank, as the Lancers charged past him as the hammer to the Custodes' anvil, Dume's army still fought. Even when one of the Custodes came in with the sedated form of Narthan Dume himself dangling from his gauntlets, held roughly by the scruff of his neck after trying to get out of an escape tunnel - even then, the power-armored Panpacific Guard stood strong. They barely killed half a dozen Custodes between them, but even as the signal of surrender came from the the south, from the last building that the Thunder Warriors had not razed to the ground, the last twenty Guard spat on the Emperor's last offer of surrender, and charged the master of mankind one last time, cannons thundering off their shoulders. And though the Custodes, the Lancers, and the Emperor himself cut them down within moments, the last of them - Ilana Saotome, Master of the Panpacific Guard - fired her cannon one last time, point-blank at the Emperor. A Custode was there, and took the hit to his shoulder; but Saotome still smiled as she died.

"That hurt," the Custode said, nursing his mangled shoulder, as they all looked out on the carnage covering the plaza. It looked like an injury that would take weeks to heal, even for a transhuman, and he was clearly slipping into unconsciousness. "Though I suppose it would have done nothing to you."

"Perhaps not," the Emperor said, so quietly that even Thrallas could barely hear it, "but perhaps it would have. Thank you, Constantin, either way. And to you," he added, now raising his voice, "Legion Master Thrallas, and the brave warriors of the Tupelov Lancers, for serving as the hammer to our anvil. The Panpacific Empire is fallen! We have taken another step nearer Unity. This is victory!"

But as the assembled troops of the Imperium cheered, Thrallas enthusiastically joining in, he nevertheless took a moment to respectfully look at the body of Ilana Saotome. Here was a woman who had fought for her beliefs, misguided though they were, and who had sacrificed herself in a fashion that Thrallas hoped he would, when the day came, live up to.

And when he spoke to the Emperor after the battle, he found it in him to politely ask that Saotome be given a warrior's funeral, a request that the Emperor granted. "Dume will not," he clarified. "Dume was a genius, but also a monster. But... but as to Saotome, and her Guard, my only regret is that they could not have been on our side."


	16. 1-15: Faro 6

Faro laid the ruler down on the table, moving the plastic figures forward. The flank advance was floundering, but with fire support from his battle engines in the center, it could still pull off forces and force his opponent on the defensive.

The contrast between the figures was clear to the eye, would have been even if they had been unpainted - his inhumanly delicate, his father's hulking and richly plated. Nonetheless, the armies were evenly matched. As to their commanders, Faro suspected he was mainly being saved by the fact that the Emperor did not devote anything like his full attention to the game.

Besides which, his father played quickly. Even as Faro was finishing his turn, the Emperor was jotting notes down, and as soon as he nodded completion, the grid of moves were made. Faro's flank assault was subjected to a somewhat degenerate interaction between the Emperor's two main machines.

"So this army is your favorite?" the Emperor asked, as he made his moves.

"It is," Faro acknowledged. "Xenos or no."

"Elves are not xenos," the Emperor observed. "They are fiction. There are xeno races which may look and act in ways that remind you of the darker fairy tales, but elves and dwarves and goblins were invented by human minds, and they are comprehensible to humans. Xenos are not."

Faro nodded, consumed by considering his own moves. He could pull off his own degenerate combination, but he suspected the Emperor had a riposte for it in store. There was, however, a counter... "That wouldn't work in an actual battle," he mused as he made the protective move, "would it? The morale wouldn't _actually_ hold."

"It would not," the Emperor acknowledged.

"It's a flaw of the game, I think," Faro said. "Its rules are too complex for the tactics it contains because of how closely it simulates war, but not nearly so complex as reality. Indeed, there is complexity added as a balancing factor for the game's pitfalls, in completely unrealistic ways. Thus it is worthless as a tactical simulation, and inelegant for a game."

"Perhaps," the Emperor said, as he made his answering moves. "But there is something to it nevertheless, is there not?"

"There is," Faro acknowledged.

So it went, in these last days of the Unification Wars. Faro was growing, already taller than an unaugmented human. He nevertheless noted a number of women, and some men, looking at him with an attraction that he would never return, but that still inspired some regret in his heart, not for himself but for them. He was called beautiful, and brilliant, and graceful, and effusively praised at every turn by most of the Imperial court, which was amazed at his ability.

The Emperor, and Malcador, were the exceptions. Both praised Faro, but their expectations were far higher. For that reason, when they did dispense praise, Faro felt he had actually earned it, rather than being celebrated by sycophants who would say anything for their own advancement.

So much of the rest was simply too easy. But the Emperor emphasized that it was only the foundation, that Faro must be careful not to fall into arrogance. And so his studies continued, of history, engineering, and above all warfare. He played games both physical and mental, but he interacted only rarely with the Legion he was to lead.

When he did, Thrallas mentioned the lull in the wars, after Dume's defeat. And, perhaps, to the Astartes, on the front lines, it did look like a pause. But Faro knew better; he had seen the great factories of the Urals set in motion to redouble themselves, and the clans of Albia desperately increasing production of arms and armor, and the beginnings of rebuilding in the basins that had once been the Panpacific Empire, and the cults of Luna once more conducting novel science, though now under detailed supervision. The gears of the Imperium were grinding ever faster, building up the strength, both military and industrial, to not only conclude the Unification Wars but to prepare the fleets of the Great Crusade immediately after.

"We cannot afford a true peace," Malcador had said. "Not until we have won. The Legions' plate must not be allowed to collect rust."

Faro understood, and agreed; but he could see as well as Malcador that it was a shame. Nonetheless, if the impending victory in the Unification Wars would not give the Imperium peace, it would grant that to Terra. Already, there were plans drawn up to restore oceans to Terra, though it would take decades to carry them out. Faro spent several days on them, plotting out where and how the basins would be filled.

"Some would say," Malcador noted, "that this is a waste of time."

"Some do," Faro agreed. "But not you."

The Sigillite nodded, leaning on his staff. "Do you know why?"

"Because we must restore," Faro said, "not merely destroy. And though, yes, one could build hab-blocks in place of the oceans, when we lose our appreciation for beauty, we lose our humanity. It is not enough that all have enough food to live; they must have joy worth living for."

"Quite," Malcador said. "Certainly, that is part of our reasoning. Though I wonder, sometimes, if those are not merely the stories we tell ourselves, and if we are not simply bringing back the oceans of our youth out of nostalgia for those bright years... Though if it were truly so, I suppose you would have wanted to drain them."

So passed days, and months, and years, until the Coriolis Enclaves fired on the Imperium's envoys, and the last phase of the Unification Wars began.


	17. 1-16: Severian 2

The night was bloody. Luna above, to which they so often looked before the campaign, was tinged red by Terra's shadow. As color above, so smell below - for the Coriolis Enclaves, which for a long time had defied Unity, were at last being cast into war.

They were not alone. On a dozen fronts, the Imperium was attacking its foes in a single night, for by now all of them combined could not compare to its power. But Severian had no time to worry about those other wars.

For the blood around him was not only his enemies'.

"Come on, Yujavriel," Severian called, dragging his closest brother along with him. "We'll make it."

Around them, shells rained down. They ran - well, stumbled - out of the killzone, Severian wondering what went wrong. The assault had started off so promisingly, too... Now Yujavriel was bleeding far too heavily, and Severian's hearts were hammering, less with the thrill of battle and more with concern for his friend.

"Leave me..." Yujavriel muttered, delirious. Severian ignored him, even as he felt a stray shot clip his pack, seemingly without damage. Yujavriel was barely conscious, but still Severian ran through the barrage, until, without even realizing it, he stumbled through a corner and found himself face-to-face with a sergeant.

Looking up, Severian realized that this was a muster point. The shells continued to pound in the distance, but they were out of the line of fire now. "Apothecary!" he cried, and then a warrior was there, taking the unconscious Yujavriel from his arms.

"He'll live," the apothecary slurred. "Low priority, sus-an coma."

Severian had no idea how that was possible, given the wounds and the volume of blood loss, but he breathed a sigh of relief nonetheless. "We ran right into their trap," he said, summarizing their situation. Yujavriel had made it, then, and Llaxan and Ptimoy had fallen back to the north. The rest of his squad was probably dead. But there would be a time to mourn later. "We almost got through in time anyway, but they just barely pulled up their guns, and that snapped the door shut."

"Was there a path through?" a figure asked.

At first Severian wanted to snap a denial, but then he saw the Astarte's crest, and the writing on his armor. Tisiaraeg Verid, a captain of the Legion, one of the heroes of Luna. And so Severian gave some thought to the question, and realized that there could indeed be a path.

"In between those walls," he said, plotting the schematic in the dirt. "Cover from both sides. The downside is that we'd be completely exposed here and here. But if we get through, we make the jump, and we're on the streets of Gair."

Verid nodded. "Brother Severian, thank you for the intelligence. Even if its price was high." He shook his head. "Squads Utisat, Lorim, Metetenes - with me."

"I'm coming as well," Severian insisted. "I'm unhurt."

Verid frowned, coming up to Severian. "Are you sure?"

"I need vengeance for my squadmates," Severian growled. "With all due respect, of course, Captain."

"Can you control that anger?" Verid asked. "Or will it endanger your fellow warriors?"

Severian had to fight back his bile, which, a detached part of his mind noted, was exactly what the captain had been concerned about. "Yes," he eventually said, and Verid relented.

They crouched as they passed the corner of the first kill zone, before scrambling up the wall to get into the gap. Severian led the way, marshaling his anger to repay it unto the foe. They slammed into the sentry guns from below before the gunners recognized they were there, slashing and tearing for brief moments of violence before dropping down and running along the chute.

The defenders had thought that they'd beaten back the first assault, Severian realized. Perhaps that had been what Captain Verid had counted on. But as they jogged on, unimpeded, there were too many moments for Severian to look back at his brothers' deaths. He needed vengeance, yes, but that early anger had faded; he couldn't really blame the locals, for killing them, because what else had he expected of them? His squadmates had died well enough, it would later be said, in the rolls for the battle, written by scribes who had never seen Pharagn's sneer or Stoy-Timal's smile. Had it been a good death? Severian did not know, and he was not sure if it was for lack of context or because the question was impossible to answer.

Severian was shocked out of those musings when he realized they had come to the second kill-zone.

"For the Emperor!" Captain Verid yelled, and they charged.

Into a storm of fire.

The Coriolans had prepared, it seems, in the time they'd had. Twenty meters, but twenty meters against artillery. Verid was at the front, and Severian tried to just run after him, zigzagging but not enough to slow down. Something hit his left side, though he wasn't sure if it was even a weapon, or merely some inconveniently placed rock, or a fallen brother. His hearts hammered, but he could only feel their pulses, not hear them, not in this -

And then he was over the barricade, and for all his charred armor and wounded side, he had become predator rather than prey.

For a time he was focused on the carnage, and only afterwards, as reinforcements dropped in, as the city burned, did he realize how long it had been since he'd heard Verid's orders. His body was barely recognizable as even Astarte, but his armor still bore enough of its markers to identify.

Nearly every other battle-brother in that storm had survived, somehow. Many were seriously wounded, but Astarte bodies could take a great deal of punishment - the gash in Severian's side had already healed. But Verid was gone, and unlike the losses of Severian's squad, it would be a loss that the Legion truly remembered. It was not as if Severian begrudged that, for Verid had likely saved his life - but then, so had Pharagn... Only Verid had been a hero of Luna, the first captain of the Legiones Astartes to die.

And as he wondered at the justice of memory, Severian reflected, too, on the fact that Verid would be far from the last.


	18. 1-17: Iacton 3

The death of Verid had already faded into painful memory when the Luna Wolves were sent into their next war, along with half a dozen other Legions, numerous auxilia regiments, and the full might of the Thunder Warriors.

Iacton Qruze raised the magnoculars to his eyes, hoping in vain to see some sign of what was going on in Xuan ahead. The town was one of little significance, strategic or otherwise, but it was on the most direct route to Mirinam, and so it had to be taken.

The view, of course, was blocked by vast spiny ruins of the great city Xuan had once been. Like carcasses they spread across the plain, with the main path between them facing away from Qruze, towards Mirinam.

Xuan, of course, was still blocked, but Qruze did see something. "Smoke," he said to Deremat as he crouched down and left the vantage point.

"Damn Rilamar," Deremat said. "He engaged after all?"

Qruze shrugged. "He may have had no choice," the captain acknowledged. "Regardless, we advance."

They did so in staggered fashion, running from cover to cover, but no fire came. Halfway to Xuan, Rilamar and his Scouts came up to Qruze, seeming flustered but without wounds or casualties.

"So what happened, Sergeant?" Qruze asked.

"The city was on fire when we got there," Rilamar offered as defense. "Rioting, captain. Maybe even civil war."

Deremat offered a skeptical harrumph, but there was really no reason to doubt the scout sergeant's words, and Qruze made that clear. "We advance as fast as we can," he ordered. "They should be too busy to intercept us."

That they were. As the Luna Wolves approached Xuan, the smell of smoke filled Qruze's nostrils, up to the point where he put his helmet on early just to filter out the smell. The auto-senses weren't as good as his Astarte nose, but they made it clear enough that the city was in chaos. They passed within meters of a sentry post seemingly without being noticed, and on a hunch Qruze jumped onto the ladder leading down from it.

No shots came. Qruze grabbed his blade and kicked the door at the top open, ready to weather the storm of fire, but still nothing came. The post was empty - no, not empty, there was someone moving in the corner. A boy, perhaps seven years old, cowering.

"Who are you?" he gasped.

"A captain of the Luna Wolves," Qruze said. "Now, child, please tell me what is happening here?"

"You're an Imperial?!" The boy, surprisingly, seemed to perk up at that.

"Yes," Qruze said, "I am. So, what is going on?"

The boy nodded, standing straighter, though he was still obviously terrified. "The Cardinal heard you were invading, and he pulled all the army back, and all the food, and he tried to kill everyone, except that no one listened to him anymore. The mayor tried to make everyone die, but no one listened to him anymore! Except afterwards, no one knew who was in charge, and someone started a fire... My dad's in town, please don't hurt him! He has a black coat and blue hat..."

Qruze nodded and took his leave, before relaying news of the situation. "The town's in chaos," he said, "and should welcome us as liberators, so long as we restore order."

In the end, they barely even had to do that. There were some looters, but they wilted very quickly in the face of guns, and there was a store where Tang's remaining supporters had walled themselves in, which had to be stormed. But for the most part, the Luna Wolves found themselves in the surreal position of firefighting duty. The people of Xuan cheered as, with the blaze contained, the Imperial Aquila was raised atop the ruins of the town hall. No blood was shed in the Luna Wolves' victory, neither theirs nor their enemies', but the day did not feel any less satisfying for it. They had helped dethrone a genocidal tyranny, and bring Unity in its place, but the true work here had been done by the very people they were fighting for.

And the only thing Qruze wondered about was why, if they were fighting for enlightenment, was it so rare to have such a peaceful conquest.


	19. 1-18: Faro 7

The Yndonesic Bloc was collapsing.

Faro had expected, somehow, that it would match the Imperium strength for strength, that the last great obstacle to the unification of Terra would give one last brutal fight before it could be broken. That was not so. Across the front, the Astartes, auxilia, and Thunder Warriors were finding barely any organized resistance, Tang's ruthless ethnarchy unable to stand up to the stress of war. Cities threw open their gates, and militias threw themselves unto the Imperium's mercy. For Tang was reviled, as was his monstrous system, and so few were willing to fight for it.

There was a lesson in that, too. The perennial pursuit of power for its own end had a way of becoming counterproductive. Resentment was a crack in society, a crack that could be exploited by determined enemies or that could shatter walls all on its own. History held countless examples of nations brought low by revolutions from within. Most of them had earned it, just as the Yndonesic Bloc had, but not all. Another variable, in the construction of the ideal society.

But though the campaign was not difficult, it was not proving brief. Conquering a united enemy was often easier than instilling organization in a region completely bereft of it. It was a mess, and a mess better-suited to the humanity of the Imperial auxilia than the more distant Astartes, to say nothing of the Thunder Warriors. And so the III Legio Astartes had been among the units called back from the front line, and before its next campaign it was to pass under new leadership.

Faro's leadership.

Faro could not help but be unsure, in the face of this. He deserved the command - he had quite literally been made for it - but an Astarte Legion was almost a society of its own, and for all his intelligence he'd had so little time. He knew he was ready enough, but 'enough' did not suffice, and he did not yet know if he was ready to his, and the Emperor's, satisfaction.

But then, taking a century to be ready would hardly be worthy either.

Gathering up his notes, Faro took a few moments to look at his reflection. A human would count his age at perhaps twenty, though his height already put the lie to the notion that he was baseline human. His white hair was again tied back, in a low topknot - a Cthonian style, a reminder of the world that had been his heritage, that would yet be his Legion's.

At the very least, Faro reasoned, his doubts did not show on his face, and that was the most important aspect.

He stepped lightly as he walked to the hall, Thrallas meeting him on the way. "They are gathered, my lord," he said. "Down to the Scouts. Three thousand Astartes - the greatest fighting force you'll ever see. It has been an honor to lead them."

"The Legion as it will stand in a decade will make this gathering seem small," Faro said. "But that should not detract from my gratitude, Thrallas. You have led nobly and well, and under your stewardship the Third has prospered. Now... now we move further. You have well deserved rest, but I cannot grant you it, for our war will continue."

Thrallas smirked. "I would never wish rest," he said, "not while I live."

Faro nodded, unsurprised. The Astartes were to a man proud of their duty, in a manner that sometimes put Faro's own doubts to shame. But then, it was necessary for a commander to doubt, and to keep those doubts to themselves.

"Your remarks?" Thrallas asked.

"Memorized, of course," Faro said, not breaking step. "Thrallas, I tell you now - you will have the status of Lord Commander. The only Lord Commander, for now, though as the Legion grows its organization will change. But while you will be the second-in-command for martial purposes, I will also need an equerry, from within the upper ranks of the Legion."

"An interface," Thrallas accepted, "between yourself and the Legion."

"And between myself and the people of the Imperium. We are not, must not be, entirely separate from them."

Thrallas nodded, and then the ceremony was there. The former Legion Master spoke first, of the Legion and of the Imperium, and then the floodlights intersected and Faro walked out. Thrallas held out the symbolic scepter, and Faro took it up, lifting it to the sky. The Astartes chanted his name, in a clamor for the new age to come.

"Astartes of the Third!" Faro said. "I do not need to remind you of the glories you have achieved in the name of the Imperium of Man; yet they are but the first spark of the victories to come. Thrallas has led you well, but I intend to be a worthy successor..."

He spoke for some time, of his dreams and his plans. It was important to assuage the Legion's aristocratic pride in its accomplishments, while also justifying the shifts in organization he would bring. Those were not, chiefly, deviations from the _Principia Bellicosa_ \- perhaps experience would demand alterations to its pattern, but that was all to come. They were, rather, shifts in emphasis, set to turn the Third into a more precise force. Air power was emphasized, Destroyer-type weaponry marginalized.

And there was the general matter of the Third Legion's place in the galaxy. "Above all," Faro said, "we must not forget what we are fighting for: not merely to break worlds, but to improve them. Some already call us His Heralds; but our allegiance is not merely to the Emperor, but also to his ideals of illumination. Thus, my gene-sons, you shall no longer wear unpainted plate. From this day forth, let the Third Legion be known as the Solar Heralds! Your armor shall be royal purple, with trim of gold; and as the Legion's symbol I will take the eagle's claw, radiant." That, too, was necessary. A reminder that this was _his_ Legion now, representing a respectful break with Thrallas's command to achieve the fullness of their potential. "Soon, we will sail to the stars. And when we do, it is our duty to illuminate them, by the light of the star which kindled humanity's first steps. I take command, now, because I am a child of the Emperor; but we are all children of Sol." Faro swept his eyes across the room. "And only by imperfection can we fail them!"

And with his signal, the Legion, his Legion, erupted into applause. Faro had shown them the future, and they had embraced that vision, of triumph and prosperity.

The work of forging that vision into reality awaited.


	20. 1-19: Abdemon 2

Antarctica was cold.

Unnaturally cold, in fact. Abdemon of the newly renamed Solar Heralds found it ironic enough that the Legion's first campaign would be fought in a land where the star in question did not shine; but there was somehow more to Antarctica's cold than the altitude and the polar night. The scholars were certain enough of that - altitude and polar night were not enough to nearly liquify nitrogen.

Yet even in this frozen wasteland, bereft of above-surface life, humanity endured. And, therefore, so did war, and the Scout Squad within it. Most of that squad was composed of warriors Abdemon counted as friends.

Most, but not all.

"See anything, Abd?" Kellagh asked, far too loudly.

Abdemon stayed silent. He did not remind Kellagh of the nature of House Emon's names, and just how disrespectful calling him that truly was. Kellagh was not actually a complete fool, and he was only baiting his fellow Scout.

Besides which, he wasn't sure if he _did_ see anything. "Movement ahead and to the left," he reported as he crawled back up out of the hole they'd cut in the ice roof, "but may be natural."

"Doubtful," Sergeant Granieb said. "Abdemon, Lio, and... Kellagh. The three of you, recon from this floor."

They did so, sneaking across the ice. Abdemon understood that the sergeant had stuck him and Kellagh together in an attempt to lessen their rift, with Lio as an impartial intermediary. Intuitively, he doubted it would work. Perhaps the ploy was too blatant.

Lio was the first to the target, and silently lowered the sensory device. Nothing, as expected. Perhaps the site really was abandoned, or perhaps it was yet another malfunction. The Astartes' armor kept them warm enough to fight, but much of their gear suffered in recompense.

They dropped down after that, Abdemon carefully cutting the circle. No one below, and no sign of habitation. Shrugging, Kellagh went forward to jump into the gap.

It was at that moment that Abdemon saw the flicker again.

He grabbed Kellagh's hand, opening his mouth to warn the other Scout away, but Kellagh wrenched himself free and jumped in. "Don't be a coward, Abd," he said as he shook himself off below. "Though what should I expect, with those false alarms - "

It was a moment's decision. Kellagh had sealed his own fate, and Abdemon wouldn't mourn his death. But he was a brother, a fellow gene-son of Faro, and they had been taught not to abandon their own.

Abdemon fired at the flicker, in the next moment it appeared.

It was already too late.

He saw Kellagh's armor pierced through with a microblade, the shot going wide, Lio staggering back to warn the rest of the squad, and the icy floor below him give way with the heat of the shot. Suddenly he was slipping, and below him Kellagh was clutching his side as the blood pouring out froze instantly -

Well, nothing to do but to fight.

He fired again, this time hitting true. Then again. The defenders seemed warier now, and Kellagh let out a shot of his own. Back to back, as they had never been in life. But now, from below, Abdemon could see the forms of their foes, indistinct though they were. A dozen, no less. Had they been full Astartes, perhaps they would have laughed at such odds, but they were Scouts and Kellagh was wounded and it was so cold. Abdemon could feel it - a shallow cut, in his arm. There was thunder from above, some kind of ambush against Granieb's position. No help was coming.

Abdemon fired anyway, again and again, and then, against all odds, the defenders fell back.

For a moment Abdemon believed that he and Kellagh had driven them off. For a moment, before he saw the form emerge from the steaming side corridor.

He was unhelmeted. Somehow, even here, he could fight unhelmeted. He was easily taller than any of the Legion's Astartes, but more importantly, he walked with an assured imperiousness that none of them could match. And behind Faro of Cthonia, two squads of Solar Heralds advanced, bolters glistening.

The Primarch pointed forth with his blade, and Abdemon felt faint with awe - no, that was blood loss. Not fatal, he thought, and an Apothecary was hurrying to his side, and so he returned himself to the glory of the moment even as the black closed around his vision.

Faro of Cthonia, leading the elite of the Legion into battle for the first time, as they cheered an unfamiliar epithet.

"Aquilair! Aquilair! Aquilair!"


	21. 1-20: Faro 8

Someday, Faro considered, he would forge his own blade. This was no insult to the Terawatt Clan smiths that had made _Farlight_. The sword he now wielded was fluid in his hand, and he could find no technical fault in it. But for all of that, the blade did not feel like it was his.

Though perhaps that would pass in time. Faro didn't know. That he wished to try his hand at the smith's craft regardless was due only to curiosity.

For now, though, he was only a warlord. Faro led the Solar Heralds forwards, leaping across the barricades and sweeping aside the Antarctic defenders with economic strokes of _Farlight_. It was easy, easier than he'd expected - but then, he was only fighting baseline humans. There would be a day -

That day was not today, and he needed to hone his focus.

"To me!" he yelled to his warriors, noting that the wounded Scouts from before were safe in the Apothecarion's care, but that the two squads with him had fallen behind. The biting wind was unpleasantly cool to his exposed flesh, but not dangerous; his hair, meanwhile, it covered in strands of frost, like his armor.

Squads Meterion and Peripaketotis duly formed up on him, the lull damping Faro's excitement somewhat. _Careful_ , he thought. _This is still a battle, and no battle is ever trivial. You are not immortal._

But it would not remain a battle for long. As Faro danced through the next intersection, his motions playful yet deadly, he already knew that much. The spirits of the miners were broken, and at the next juncture his call for surrender was heeded.

There were not many more such bunkers left, he considered as he ascended back to the surface. And Army Group Antilles had all of them surrounded. What had seemed like a resilient and self-sustaining network of defenses had proven easy to disrupt and rile, allowing the combined arms of the Solar Heralds and the auxilia to easily splinter the resistance.

One more frontier suborned by the Imperium. One more domain of improvement.

His Astartes - his gene-sons, as it was becoming easier and easier to think of them as - cheered him as Aquilair. A pet name, referring to both the eagle emblem of the Legion and his closeness to the Emperor, symbolized by the Palatine Aquila. The two emblems were quite different in design, obligatorily, but nonetheless his Legion celebrated that tie.

He went over the war plans while in the atmospheric gunship, with his equerry and captain Regulus Nurm and General Torolli. "Not much more to do," Torolli opined. "That was masterful, my lord."

Faro didn't respond, searching for imperfections, for points where the enemy still had any chance to turn the campaign around. There were no reasonable ones, but he could not allow even a miniscule possibility of this first war failing. "Two clearances remain," he said. "But you are, perhaps, right that my own presence will not be required." He had seen little in the way of personal combat in this campaign. That was by design, but still...

Thrallas met him when they arrived at Damec, with a grim look on his face. "My lord," he said to Faro, "news from Ararat."

Torolli gasped behind him. "The Emperor - "

"Is unharmed," Thrallas immediately said. "But the fighting was more brutal than expected. There were severe casualties among the Custodes, and the Thunder Warriors were wiped out."

"To the man?" Nurm asked in disbelief.

"Close enough, brother-captain," Thrallas said. "Their order is to be disbanded."

Faro went over the more detailed, classified data with his lord commander afterwards. The reports were surprisingly sparse on detail, and that put Faro in a suspicious mood. And that reminded him, too, of Malcador's words, indeed the rumblings of the entire Imperial court, about how the Thunder Warriors had to be phased out.

"It wasn't an accident," Faro eventually said, to his second-in-command and his equerry. "The details are kept secret, but it's obvious enough, especially given the low Custode casualties. My father used the Thunder Warriors as a sacrificial vanguard, or something of the sort. He let them die. In battle, as was their calling."

Nurm started. "You accuse your father of - "

"Of being strategic, yes," Faro said, staring at the table and the scale model of the battle for Ararat projected onto it. "It was the right thing to do. The Custodes' lives, and the Astartes', are far more precious. The Thunder Warriors' lives were brief and painful, and so the Emperor let them die so that others could live. As I said - a sacrificial force, perhaps used as bait here, so that the rebels were annihilated by the Custodes."

"A callous decision," Thrallas acknowledged, "but I see why it was necessary."

Faro remained silent for a time, staring at the model. "This, of course, remains in this room," he added. "But both of you should recognize that sacrifices are inevitable, in building an empire."

Faro did not voice his second revelation, the one that had truly shaken him. Tactical priorities notwithstanding, there was no way the Ararat rebels had been sufficient to wipe out a properly supported force of Thunder Warriors. Either they had rebelled, and been purged by the Custodes themselves -

Or, more likely, the Emperor had outright abandoned them to the fates, while storming the main cavern.

"It was necessary," Faro said, after the others had left. "The Sigillite would agree with it, and likely did. There was no place for the Thunder Warriors in the new world we are building, for all their past honorable service."

All this was truth. And yet Faro still felt a deep sadness, as he looked at the model. Because while he would have made the same choice in the Emperor's place, some part of him had still held onto the hope that the Emperor didn't need to make such choices, that like a god he could always find a third way.

But that was the nature of the Imperial Truth and adulthood both, wasn't it? There were no gods. Not even Faro's father.


	22. 1-21: Thrallas 4

There had been doubts, before. Not on Thrallas's part, but even for him the uncertainty was impossible to escape. Some said that the Emperor was a tyrant, others that he was mad. Countless whispers and rebellions and incipient schisms had threatened the Imperium in the years of the Unification Wars, held in check only by the Emperor's brilliance, Malcador's schemes, and as of late Faro Aquilair's raw charisma. The last of these was a point of pride to the Solar Heralds, and to Thrallas it was also a source of increased responsibility, for in Faro's dealings at court and travels across Terra he had often left command of the Third Legion to Thrallas.

There had been doubts, before. But as Thrallas looked over the assembled dignitaries, he could see none. Not in Faro's youthful, hopeful face, or in the similar faces of his sons; not in the assembled colonels of the hundred regiments that had been deemed worthy to form the core of the Solar Auxilia; not in the civilian notables viewing the spectacle. And, of course, not in the ever-changing visage of the Emperor of Mankind himself.

This was a singular moment in human history. And it had come. It had felt so distant before, but now it seemed to have arrived uncannily quickly.

Around them, the First Expeditionary Fleet gathered. It was a varied collection - ships constructed here, others bought from Mars or Saturn, ancient vessels of past wars, destroyers of unknown origin... It was the First, and even if right now it could only be seen as points of light, those points of light filled Thrallas's hearts with a burning pride.

For now, true, their travels would be limited to within the Solar System. It would be smaller scouting fleets, led by Rogue Trader Militants that were half-exiles from Terra, that would brave the Warp first. They would chart the systems surrounding Sol, and prepare them for the coming Unity, while the Emperor united the Solar System itself. It would not be a trivial task - the xenos of Saturn, the tech-priests of Mars, and piratical scum across the system would resist the Imperium. But the Legions would bring them to heel, one way or another.

Before them, the viewports opened, revealing an artificial constellation. The Emperor did not speak at first, merely spreading his arms to reveal the gathering of ships behind him.

"At long last," he eventually said, with surprising softness, "Terra is united. At long last, we journey out into the stars, as I have promised. Men and women of the Imperium, today we begin the great task of bringing humanity back together. To those of you who fought your entire life for Unity, I thank you for your service. Your sacrifices will not be forgotten. As to those who still have years of struggle ahead of them, I say this: be strong, be vigilant, and above all be true to what you have fought for to reach here. Now, at long last, we stand at the gates of infinity, before the great void that is the ocean of stars. Who among you would dare those waters?!"

Perhaps, Thrallas thought, others had heard a slightly different speech. That was an effect sometimes reported, with the Emperor. But that mattered little. He cheered with the crowd, clamoring to lead the way for humanity's future.

It was one beginning of a series of beginnings. The day when the First Expeditionary Fleet breached the bounds of the Solar System for the first time, for example - that was a day that would pass with less pomp, but one that would carry its own significance. And for that matter, Unity itself, proclaimed at Ararat, had not been so enthusiastically celebrated. But then, such was the nature of time. There was no single clear ending of the Unification Wars, no well-defined first day of the Great Crusade. So humans and transhumans declared their own boundaries.

The swing of the Emperor's hand to detach the _Bucephelus_ from anchor was, therefore, not the single beginning of the Great Crusade.

But it was _a_ beginning.

 **End Part 1**


	23. 2-01: Faro 9

Seven years had passed.

Seven years of war, but also of diplomacy. The Emperor offered a great deal to worlds that would join the Imperium, as did his growing Iterator Corps. To be sure, the Legions were there, for those who did not want to talk or could not be communicated with. But many of humanity's pockets were genuinely overjoyed to meet others of their species. First among those allies was Mars. The tech-priests had reached an uneasy compromise with the Emperor, a cooperation that would prove so foundational as to add a second head to the Raptor Imperialis.

But as the First Expeditionary Fleet advanced beyond the heliopause into the vastness of interstellar space, it found many worlds that refused to accept peaceful integration into the Imperium, including not only petty xeno empires but also human domains.

Petessan was one such planet.

Faro walked the landing site, checking the defensive lines. They had landed on the flanks of a plateau locals apparently called the Pail, one that overlooked the city of Reillis. Holy Reillis, other polises of Petessan called it, the city of the gods, into which none could pass without divine approval. The Imperial Truth spoke to the falsehood of that, but Reillis's defenses more than made up for the absence of divine favor, and so it alone on Petessan refused to acknowledge the Imperium of Man's dominion.

The artillery batteries now being erected would end that defiance with short order, and so would the being coordinating them.

"What occupies your thoughts, Faro?" the Emperor of Mankind asked as he walked up to his son.

Faro looked down into the basin, and the fervently blinking lights of the city below. "Reflection," he said. "Why is it this city that they call holy? Lanne was larger, Wen richer, Remedianor older. Even in beauty, the blockiness of Reillis... It is practical, yes, but hardly aesthetically impressive even by Petessan's measures."

The Emperor stood by Faro's side, looking down into the plain. "Religion cares little for logic, Faro."

"But there had to be _some_ reason."

"There was," the Emperor acknowledged. "You might make time to study it, after the campaign is over. I suspect that some prophet was born in Reillis, or some relic found. Pure happenstance, reiterated through tradition. Or perhaps its martial might once made it the center of an empire that inspired Petessani faith. That the answer is not well-known does not mean that it cannot be found."

Faro nodded. "Perhaps," he said. "But it doesn't matter. I would rather have my studies of the past survey things besides the origin of lies, and besides... Cthonia awaits."

He had promised he would return, and he knew the time to carry out that promise was here. He had left alone, with almost nothing; he would return at the head of a Legion, bringing the illumination of a new golden age.

But this war came first, and in that moment it arrived rather spectacularly.

The sight came first, Faro whirling around, his father just as fast, to the fiery point in the corner of their eyes. It erupted, a great blast that was followed, instants later, by the shock wave thundering past them, Faro having to strain to keep his footing. From two - no, three other locations, the characteristic plasma discharges of the Petessani were visible. A raid? Or a counterattack?

Well, they hadn't been ready for either.

Faro charged towards the explosion. He was unarmored, as was his father, but that was secondary; they had to protect the command encampment. He yelled into the vox a command for the advancing Arama strike force to return, to reinforce them. There should have been no way for the Reillisians to come from behind, but -

But the shock troops were on them, and there was no more time to think of why.

They fought there, back to back, on the white slopes above Reillis, father and son, Emperor and Primarch, gold and violet. That both had their blades, at least, was a fortunate coincidence, thin _Farlight_ sitting comfortably in Faro's hand, the Emperor's flaming sword cutting down scores of the enemy at a stroke - but they came on anyway. They were surrounded by a light that was more than fire, as if they fought on the surface of a star and not a planet, and everything seemed to be exploding, and Faro struck and weaved again and again and again -

And then, when he could already see Arama returning, Letit's captain crest at the group's head, tanks rolling in behind - then, he missed one flash, and the plasma blast struck him in the shoulder, and for long moments he couldn't tell -

But he could feel the Emperor's presence above him, nevertheless. Alone, in those last few minutes, standing sentinel over his prone son, the Emperor fought with a might that surely made the Reillisians doubt their conception of the divine. They simply could not approach, in those moments, could not get close enough to get even a clean shot at Faro.

And in this desperate frenzy, they also missed the window to retreat, and that sealed their fate.

Letit led Strike Force Arama in a massive charge, cannons firing, and the Reillisians could do nothing but die. Faro struggled to his feet, pulling _Farlight_ up, and bisected one last zealot before the front fell back. Breathing heavily, he looked on as Arama flowed around them, Letit desperately querying Faro as to his condition. "I'm fine," he said, "the Emperor guarded me..."

It was a scene that Faro suspected would be memorialized in art, which rather embarrassed him. This had been the first time he had truly needed protection. Abundant technical lessons could be drawn, among them that of never underestimating the enemy's weaponry, but it had been shameful to be an impediment to his father.

But not much of one. The Emperor clapped Faro on the shoulder. "Well done," he said. "They'll have spent themselves in this assault."

Faro nodded. "Thank you," he said, unsure of what to add. "I..."

"You did enough," the Emperor said. "The error of not noticing the ambush was mutual."

It had been the cave system, it would later be determined. While the aquila was being raised over a broken Reillis, a scouting force discovered the caverns' true extent, which had been mapped in detail by the locals. More tunnels than natural formation by now, they were well-shielded from auspex and assault alike.

Petessan was soon entirely compliant. The Emperor mapped the path of the First Expeditionary Fleet onwards, driving to the galactic south.

But for Faro, after one final embrace with his father, the time had come to track in a reverse direction, towards a system that he still could not help but see as home.


	24. 2-02: Abdemon 3

Legionnaire Abdemon, Solar Heralds Fourth Company, peered out from behind the boulder, unable to make out any xenos.

Shaking his head, he passed the magnoculars back to his commander, Lene ul-Emeree. "I think it's abandoned, sergeant," he said. "That, or the entire population is attacking the Army encampments."

Sergeant ul-Emeree frowned. He frowned often, especially in conundrums such as this one. Squad ul-Emeree had been detached, with the Primarch's blessing, to join the Geno Five-Two Chiliad auxilia regiment in a probing attack on the 'Krooked-Klaw' xenos empire. Little about that empire was known with certainty, and so their mission was as much one of scouting as of devastation.

"Vox still unusable," Shevland reported. "Intentional interference, surely."

The sergeant twirled his moustache. "No doubt the town is inhabited, they said."

"The xenos may be nomadic, sergeant," Ryrrh pointed out.

Ryrrh and Shevland had been detached with Abdemon to reinforce Squad ul-Emeree after the losses it had suffered on Sirian. Kellagh had received his full implants too, eventually, as had Viath Lio, though Abdemon knew little more of them. Others had fallen, Scout Sergeant Granieb among them. Not many, though. The Astartes were built for war, and death was rare by the standards of mortal troops.

"Doubtful," Matecus opined. "The sensorium data is error-prone. The Chiliad made a mistake, that's all." Matecus was an old hand in the squad, and friendly enough, but he had an exceptional belief in the Astartes' superiority that Abdemon found excessive. At the very least, he could have refrained from mentioning that belief in front of their allies.

"Possible," ul-Emeree said, finally coming to a decision. "Or, possibly, they have launched a counterattack. Abdemon, take Viterov, Magnaralk, Ryrrh, and Shevland, and scout the settlement. Everyone else, with me; we'll reinforce the Chiliad, as they may need it."

They separated quickly, and only then did Abdemon realize what ul-Emeree had said. He had implicitly given Abdemon command, rather than the more senior Magnaralk.

"Well?" Viterov asked impatiently. "What's the plan, brother?"

"Assume hostiles," Abdemon said, falling back on training and on memories of other leaders. He had no shortage of such examples to follow. "Quick advance, between cover - that grove, then that ridge..."

They dashed from cover to cover, the silence more and more ominous, before they heard the thunder from the west - the Army line. "Continue," Abdemon said. Their orders were unchanged, and there were clearly _some_ xenos in the area.

So they ran forwards, until they were in the town. Of course, calling it a town gave it a dignity it lacked even by xenos standards. Behind a tall palisade, the camp was almost falling apart, pieced together from pieces with scrap metal, guns scattered everywhere. Relics of habitation were obvious, notably the large teeth scattered on the ground, but they found no hostiles.

"This isn't a town," Abdemon said as he realized it. "It's an army camp." He picked up a broken-off fang, noting its impressive size. Not that xeno scale necessarily indicated the level of challenge they presented, but it was still ominous.

"We can hold it," Viterov put in. "It's sturdy enough."

"It's big," Abdemon said. "Too big... just what sort of force was stationed here?"

No one had a good answer for that, though Ryrrh provided a numerical estimate.

"We reinforce the Geno and the sergeant," Abdemon ordered. "Even if they can push the xenos back, we're too few to hold a retreating force off."

They trod back along a circuitous path, managing to escape detection so easily that Abdemon didn't think the xenos were even looking. But then, by the time they reached the landing site, he realized why.

They were all charging the Chiliad's line. Every last one.

Volley after volley was launched, in disciplined lines. Xeno after xeno went down, though their tough skin absorbed much of the impact. But it didn't matter, because they kept coming.

"Throne," Shevland swore, "they're ugly."

"Even for xenos," Magnaralk said.

Abdemon privately agreed with that assessment. Green, hulking, foul-smelling, they carried crude weapons and rode wagons that seemed made of garbage. They were monsters, pure and simple. Some xenos, Abdemon felt, could be reasoned with, if Imperial doctrine hadn't forbidden it. A single glance confirmed that these were not among them.

And yet, for all their apparent stupidity, they were winning.

Abdemon quickly linked up with the sergeant. "The line's about to break," Ryrrh pointed out, and ul-Emeree only grunted in response. The Astartes' bolter fire was more effective than the Army's at piercing the xenos' hide, but not enough against the sea of green before them.

"They vary in size," Ryrrh pondered.

"Counter-charge the biggest one?" Abdemon suggested.

"That's stupid," Viterov immediately said. "But then, it might just work..."

"Stupidity's working just fine for them," Lettene said.

"The line's about to break," Abdemon said, as a shell bounced off his armor. "We have to do something, sergeant."

Sergeant Lene ul-Emeree nodded. "The line will break regardless," he said. "We counter-charge here."

"But -" Matecus began.

"You'll see," ul-Emeree said, and raised his sword. "Solar Heralds!"

It was an absurd sight, ten figures in violet and gold rushing forwards into a storm of green. They were pounded by ordnance, most of it glancing, none of it successful.

And in response, the biggest of the xenos sharply veered away from where he was about to impact the Geno's line, and leveled a challenge towards the Astartes. Ul-Emeree ignored it, and pointed the Solar Heralds forward, towards the green before them.

And then the battle was around them.

It was a hard fight. All around them was the enemy, and they could only stand back-to-back in a circle of ten - soon nine, then eight - and fight as they could. The xenos fell before them, but still they charged.

Still they charged, from all sides - running, now, away from the Chiliad's broken line.

The biggest of them strode in with loping gait, pushing aside his competitors to face ul-Emeree's blade. The sergeant leveled his own and, for the first time Abdemon could remember in some time, smiled.

And then they clashed.

Abdemon could barely see anything of that duel, so busy he was with ensuring none of the other xenos could interfere in it. But he saw glimpses of brilliant swordplay, a fencer's cautious style, ul-Emeree fighting with seemingly boundless energy -

And in the end, though the xenos was twice his size, ul-Emeree cut its head from its shoulders, and yelled in triumph.

The xenos grew ever denser, around them, for a brief few moments; and then they were running. Some still tried to advance, but now to the west Abdemon could see the Geno's line. It had broken, true.

But the Solar Heralds' intervention had come just in time to give them the opening to gather themselves, and now they ran forwards to rescue them in turn. As disorganized as the xenos, but by now more numerous, and far more confident. Three of the Solar Heralds were down, and of Pranse there was not much left, but the other six all joined the charge to chase the xenos' tattered remnants away.

"How did you know they would react like that, brother-sergeant?" Ryrrh asked, after.

"Intuition," ul-Emeree said, bloodied and breathing heavily.. "They left their camp behind entirely for the sake of war. Not for survival, but to find a challenge."

"What do we call them anyway?" Matecus said, propping himself on his intact elbow.

It was Hetman Leno of the regiment that answered. "No doubt an official name is incoming, but the Phennians," he said, "call them _orks_."

Ul-Emeree nodded. "Suitable," he said.

Magnaralk had been wounded too, and so it was in the medicae unit - not comparable to a Legion Apothecarion, but good enough to at least keep them all alive - that Abdemon found him, as the Solar Heralds departed the planet for Cthonia. Suddenly, though, as he entered that room, he found he didn't know what to say.

Magnaralk's laughter broke that silence.

"Don't worry," he said. "If this is about the scouting assignment... I'm a terrible leader, and you're going to be a captain sooner than you think. Ul-Emeree made the right choice."

Abdemon frowned. "Thank you. But the House of Magnaralk..."

"Has a long and noble history," Magnaralk recited. "Which says next to nothing about my own ability to lead, given I left it at age ten."

Abdemon nodded. As he spoke with the older Astarte, about their respective pasts and futures, he wondered at the prejudices he still carried within himself.

And, too, at those others did.


	25. 2-03: Iacton 4

The Ak'Haireth had been completely exterminated, according to the official records.

Standing on the bridge of the cruiser _Wolf's Wrath_ (an unimaginative name that he fully intended to change if his command was confirmed), Iacton Qruze of the Luna Wolves didn't especially believe it.

The campaign had been taxing. The spearhead assault of the Sixteenth Legion had floundered, not because it had been badly executed but because, as they learned far too late, the Ak'Haireth dominion had no true center to stab the spear into. In truth, these xenos were scavengers, piloting stolen ships of other species and raiding undefended worlds. Most, when the Imperium came, had most likely simply retreated to the uncharted void without trading even a single shot with humanity resurgent.

Not that Legion Master Minos would accept that. With the losses the Luna Wolves had suffered, no commander would. And they had certainly cleared out several major nests of the foul fungi, as had the Eighth Legion.

But... Qruze took a moment to decide what, exactly, he was objecting to. True, the Solar Heralds were achieving great glory alongside the Emperor. The First Legion and the Dusk Raiders and the Iron Tenth were all winning great victories of their own. But it was not the ignominy of fighting a war across iced-over battlestations secreted away in the distant reaches of insignificant systems that bothered him. That was a necessary duty.

It was, rather, the tactics of the Luna Wolves in the campaign.

He turned as he heard footsteps behind him, seemingly unaffected by the surrounding work of the bridge.

"Brother-Captain Larfes," he said.

"Brother-Captain Qruze," the other captain said with a salute. "So, we have victory."

"A dubious victory," Qruze said.

"Perhaps," Larfes said, looking out at the stars. "Shipmaster Leonen, how far are we from Warp jump?"

"Four hours," the shipmaster responded.

Larfes spat on the floor, fortunately without using his Betcher's gland. "I hate this part," he said.

"It is a necessary part of operating in the void," Qruze pointed out. "It takes time to travel, which is fortunate, as it applies to our enemies as well. And, besides, it gives time for something closer to rest."

"Yes, yes," Larfes said, waving his hand. "Life can't all be glorious assaults. But that notwithstanding, Qruze, are you not bored?"

"Truthfully, no," Qruze said. "It provides time for reflection, time for, if nothing else, planning those glorious assaults. Even we cannot spend every instant of our time in the thick of battle."

Larfes shrugged. "Well," he said, "I suppose we look on the matter differently."

"We do," Qruze said.

For a time they stood together in companionable silence, looking at the stars. Qruze wasn't overly close with Larfes, but he liked the younger captain fine. The problem was -

The problem was that the Luna Wolves were becoming increasingly more like Larfes than like Qruze, and even went further along the road of, for want of a better term, savagery. The influx of new Terran recruits was balancing that out somewhat, but the Sixteenth, while always a brutal force, had not initially been as specialized as it was becoming. Qruze had a fleeting vision of the Legion becoming a battering ram, sent in only to accomplish objectives where bloodshed and cost did not matter. They could be the speartip, but they were losing flexibility for that.

Qruze would talk to the Legion Master about that, but he was not sure Minos would listen. He could already see the counterarguments: there was need, in the Great Crusade, for specializations within Legions. The Sixth was far more 'barbaric' than the Sixteenth would ever be, and the Twelfth more violent.

But privately, as he took a long sip of flavored Proximan water, Iacton Qruze wondered if he was already becoming a relic of the Luna Wolves' past.


	26. 2-04: Hadrusbal 3

Hadrusbal had known Faro would return.

It wasn't that he trusted promises. Hadrusbal had seen enough of Hive Vilepor to know just how much the powerful valued their oaths. Hells, he'd broken enough of them himself. Honestly given with the best of intent, but sacrificed for convenience.

But the thing was, Faro didn't just promise to fix Cthonia, he genuinely wanted to. Hadrusbal couldn't say why, since the effort was bound to be monumental. But he had, and his father had approved, and so Hadrusbal knew what to expect.

He'd grown old waiting for it, though. Indeed, at one point he morbidly wondered whether Faro would fight to retrieve his corpse. Regardless, he considered, his work was done. The Death's Eyes were doing well once more, slipping through the cracks between more powerful gangs and accruing influence in the meantime. Hiali had become boss, but Hadrusbal was still of use - his mind was sharp, and his body fit if not spry. If either of those changed, the Death's Eyes would kill him themselves. No room for dead weight, in Hive Vilepor - on all Cthonia, really.

But nevertheless, he could feel something the prior day, and the thunder of drop-pods was loud enough to wake him up. After that, he joined the scouts in waking up the rest of the gang.

"We could flee," Hiali said to them. She'd grown into a tough woman, though pretty enough if you ignored the scarss. When the boys of the Death's Eyes had been taken - along with those of most other gangs in the area, mind - the girls'd been forced to truly pick up the burdens of running the gang and killing its enemies. It was only a relatively brief generation that'd been taken, thankfully. Otherwise all of Vilepor would have a problem. "Or we could stand to greet them."

"The Imperials are not cruel," Lusityb said, stepping forwards, "but they are far from kind. They may remember the incident with Faro, but it is too much to assume they will be grateful for it."

Hadrusbal stepped forward. All eyes were on him in an instant, as they had not been on Lusityb. "The Imperials are not kind," he said. "But Faro will remember us. If we hide, he will find us regardless, but he may be less than overjoyed."

They listened to him. Perhaps, he considered, it was the fact that, unlike Lusityb, he actually remembered the years of constant Imperial raids. The recruiters had stopped coming, after Faro's departure. That was not a coincidence.

As he grew older, Hadrusbal was increasingly disinclined to believe in coincidence.

His guess was right, of course. The Death's Eyes formed up as an honor guard as Faro entered their hideout, within only minutes of landing. He'd gotten _good_. Or had access to great trackers, whether human or technological.

Faro had grown so inhumanly big that he had to bend down to pass the archway. He wore richly decorated armor, violet and yellow, and wore a sword at his belt big enough for his own size. If Hadrusbal had taught him anything, there were other, hidden weapons on his person too.

"Overlord Hadrusbal," he said without preamble.

"It's just Hadrusbal now," he answered with a chuckle. "Hiali's the new Overlord."

Faro nodded, as warriors began to file into the room after him. "Is Blozanise - "

"Shot by a Greensash a decade back," Hadrusbal said. "It was a quick death."

He noticed that many of the Death's Eyes were kneeling. He wasn't, of course, and neither was Hiali - their stances were both neither subservient nor defiant. He'd taught her well.

At least, he hoped so.

And then, Hadrusbal took a look at the faces of the warriors surrounding Faro, and gasped. The faces were subtly altered, the bodies grotesquely large even without armor - but he'd never forget any Death's Eye youngling. Ezekyle Keyshen stood closest to Faro, like a trusted second, which perhaps he was. The others - Baltan, Okaral, Nilespor - were further back, bearing different markings that Hadrusbal suspected meant they came from different units. They had come back, nevertheless.

The reunions were perhaps less emotional than they could have been. Not all the taken children had come back, either; some had died during induction into the Solar Heralds, Hadrusbal learned from Faro's sorrowful explanation. Others had fallen during the war. The fleets of the Imperium of Man were spreading out from their capital world of Terra, bringing new lands and peoples under the Imperium's rule.

"And now," Faro said, sitting in council with Keyshen, Hadrusbal, and Hiali, "it is Cthonia's turn."

"You're going to do it after all, then," Hadrusbal said. "Fix Cthonia."

"Of course," Faro said. "But first, I suppose I shall have to conquer it."

Haili frowned. "Truth be told," she said, "that'll be the easy part. Nine of ten gangs will surrender to you as soon as you explain things, and the rest you'll have to exterminate, and good riddance to them."

"Really?" Faro asked, with the glimpse of a smile. "So do you surrender, then?"

Hiali didn't know what to say to that, at first. Hadrusbal took the opportunity to reply. "We surrendered already," he said, "five thousand cycles ago."

That broke the tension, and soon of them were laughing except Faro, who was merely grinning. "Well," Keyshen said, "since you surrendered so early, I guess you get better terms. The Emperor never did get around to offering them last time around, if I recall."

"Indeed," Faro said. "Overlord Hiali, how would you like to be governor of Hive Vilepor?"

Hiali paused before answering. Hadrusbal saw ambition warring with anxiety in her eyes, but he knew from the beginning that the former would win out. Well, it was the position she deserved, even if without the bolters of the Solar Heralds it'd be a major pain keeping hold of it. For himself, when the time came, Hadrusbal asked only a comfortable place to live. "I've grown tired of wandering," he said, "truth be told."

"That you will receive," Faro said, "but you are not so old as to retire quite yet. So, Hadrusbal, would you plan one last campaign with me?"

And so, on a holo-table soon brought over from Faro's ship, the four of them and Lord Commander Thrallas plotted out the unification of Cthonia.


	27. 2-05: Faro 10

Prosperity was more difficult than compliance.

Much more difficult, Faro found. The last resistance on Cthonia proved easy to stamp out. Every rational gang surrendered close to immediately, just as predicted, even if most demanded at least basic terms. The ones that refused to negotiate were clearly going to be impossible to work with, and so Faro felt no shame about their annihilation.

The Black Dogs were not in either category: they had been wiped out five years before Faro's arrival. The primarch wasn't sure how he felt about it, but it was proof, perhaps, that even Cthonia's dysfunctional society was reluctant to host parasites like that for long.

But if it was easy to declare Cthonians would no longer fight outside the arenas, finding out what they were to do instead proved a challenge. The regions of the planet that were arable were already under cultivation as intense as could be managed; Cthonia couldn't actually feed itself, but it tried its best. Under the Imperium, it would have to import food, and therefore to produce something in exchange.

Nonetheless, there were agricultural reforms to be made. That was how Faro found himself watching, from below, as the Martian Mechanicum's tugs lowered several comets to the planetary surface. They came down as irregular chunks of gray, distinct within the smoky sky, spilling down waterfalls. Cthonia would never have oceans as Terra did, but it would have a water cycle within the bounds of its agricultural zones.

"So," Thrallas said as he came up to Faro, "is Keyshen formally your equerry now?"

"He is," Faro said. "It is favoritism, perhaps, but this is a position for which favoritism is a valid consideration. And he did make sergeant on merit, did he not?"

"Certainly," Thrallas said. "Would he still have become your equerry had Brother-Captain Varul not fallen?"

"Not immediately," Faro truthfully responded. Then, realizing what Thrallas was truly asking, he added, "And the Legion is not changing so fast as you believe, nor will it. Cthonia will change, not the Third."

"They will both change," Thrallas said thoughtfully. "But it will be for the better."

"You truly believe so?"

"With both my hearts," Thrallas said.

Faro turned his gaze upwards at the blocks being lowered. "Well," he said, "I suppose it is time to talk to the petitioners."

Keyshen greeted him on the way. "There's an impressive amount of paperwork," he said, "considering you only invented the Chtonian alphabet a few cycles ago."

"Records are necessary," Faro said. "And I cannot trust cogitators alone with the truly important matters. Humanity has tried that once already." The Golden Age of Technology was a grim hole in many histories precisely because of this. Ironically, the Sigillite had access to more remembrances of the preceding Age of Terra. "Still, let me take a look."

He stopped and pored over the forms for a few moments before realizing the problem. "You've been filling both forms out for every request? No wonder you're going mad! Here, this is only for accepted petitions, and this is only for ones directly related to the Legion."

Keyshen's eyes went wide. "I - am deeply sorry, my lord."

"No issue," Faro said, "so long as you learn from your mistake."

And then he walked into the planetary throne room, ascended the marble steps, and sat.

It was all a deliberate pretense, of course. The throne room was arranged to make him look maximally majestic. Some of the petitioners who came in, all hardened fighters, fainted at the sight. Someday, Faro supposed, it would be considered a test.

The first petitioner that withstood his aura was a woman concerned about the tasks her gang had received. "The All Browns do not forge," she insisted. "With all due respect, it is a basic principle on which the gang was founded."

"Would agricultural duty be more acceptable?" Faro asked, leaning forward.

"Yes, lord primarch," she said immediately. "Thank you, lord primarch." That, in turn, allowed for a convenient trade with a gang that refused agricultural duty but was happy to work in industry.

Others proved less agreeable. "We cannot have this... schola... in our ancestral territory," a man named Verulalt Nab protested. "We will not be allowed to simply kill the children, by your laws. And it is unjust to make us tolerate them; it denigrates the fundamental value of our territory."

Faro sighed and unsheathed _Farlight_ , laying it across his lap. "Very well," he eventually said, when Nab refused to relent. "Your territory now belongs to the New Stars, and theirs to you."

Nab froze, likely because the New Stars' territory was ten times smaller and much more polluted than his own gang's had been, but didn't do anything suicidal.

The matter of pollution cleanup was itself sore, of course. Rivers of sludge poured into the depths of Cthonia, and came up again as rains that commingled with the smoke dominating the atmosphere. Faro would give Cthonia back the sky, and he had the technologies for it. Industry would be hurt, but the knowledge of Mars would recoup that with interest - even the knowledge of Terra alone would have. Already great scrubbers floated in the stratosphere, and virtually every factory on Cthonia was being reworked. Plants, too, were being planted, an engineered biosphere to maintain that equilibrium, though questions remained as to the optimal mix. One of the petitioners complained of the meab trees breaking apart the walls of the Hives, and though it was an isolated problem that Faro in this case dismissed, he took it under consideration for the event of repetition.

Still, it was neither in agriculture or in industry that Cthonia would offer its greatest harvest. Faro meant to make the most of its greatest resource - its people. Cthonia was horrendously overpopulated, but could easily house ten times as many people still. He imagined schools and universities, astropathic relays, the military infrastructure suitable of a gate to Terra, monuments tourists would gawk at, and in the underground the continued process of industry, but recycling rather than producing. The waste of Cthonia's long-extinct mining enterprises was an ore in itself.

Yet progress required sacrifice. Faro noted some of the more discontented petitioners speaking to each other, likely forming cliques to oppose the changes that would sweep millions of Cthonians off their territories. Faro sent orders to have them monitored, naturally.

He would fix Cthonia, no matter who stood in his way.

"This will be a long project," Keyshen said, "won't it, my lord?"

"It will take years," Faro said, "before I can leave for Crusade. And decades before the work is truly done. But perfection takes time, Ezekyle, and I will not simply salve Cthonia's wounds. Other worlds', yes, but not Cthonia's."

"Cthonia's wounds are bone-deep," Keyshen pointed out.

"Just so," Faro said, "just so. And so we must rebuild Cthonia as you were rebuilt, Ezekyle. From the very core, pervasively, completely... but not so completely that it ceases to be Cthonia."

Prosperity was more difficult than compliance. But only together did they both make up the eternal, true pursuit of humanity.


	28. 2-06: Severian 3

The frigate was called _Immortal Howl_ , and Severian was fairly sure it was on the verge of death.

It was an honor, of course, to accompany the Emperor of Mankind himself on his travels with the First Expeditionary Fleet. After Faro's departure for Cthonia, the Emperor had called the Luna Wolves to him, to accompany the Custodes as the fist of the First Expeditionary Fleet. The captains had been proud at the honor - hells, everyone was proud of the honor. And it really was something, to witness the Emperor in battle. He was less a warrior and more a humanoid bomb, scattering anyone around his position in a golden storm. This, despite maintaining the beacon of the Astronomicon on Terra itself even as he stormed enemy walls.

The Custodes were... less than pleasant, though. It was strange, how much the other warrior brotherhood took issue with them, to an extent that none of the other Legions did. The Third was proud, the Sixth distant, the Fifteenth had an absurd proportion of psykers, and yet they all regarded each other as in some sense cousins, and in any case as warriors for the same cause. The Custodes saw the Astartes only as threats, apparently, which made Severian less than happy. They had just the same justification to see the Custodes as threats, after all.

Still, Severian was at last seeing the stars. His squad had been rebuilt, Yujavriel taking the promotion to sergeant. He had been uncertain in the early days, but he was a worthy leader now, and Severian would bite the face off whoever said otherwise.

Metaphorically, mind you. Well, probably metaphorically.

It was a new dawn, in any case, the sort of campaign Severian had become an Astarte to wage; but it was somewhat soured by the frigate. It was a scavenged vessel - the very pace of the Crusade meant that the Martian and Saturnine shipyards could not keep up with the number of voidcraft the Expeditionary Fleets required, and so many of the Astartes were forced to use lower-quality craft. At the moment, though, Severian suspected that someone had made an error in the calculus for this particular ship.

"Does the enginseer have any updates, Severian?" Yujavriel asked, leaning on the bulkheads to stabilize himself against the incessant shaking.

"Says it's all within tolerances, brother-sergeant," Severian answered, carefully balancing his weight. "Though the tolerances were written for a vessel twice the size, so the Omnissiah will decide. Her words, not mine."

"The Warp jump's nearly done, at least," Yujavriel said, "We should be planetside within the hour, shipboard time. If we make it, I'm petitioning Captain Elamur for reassignment again. We're no use to the war effort dead."

As he said that, the ship seemed to pull apart, space rippling with visible waves.

"If," Severian said.

"Yes, Severian. A substantial if. But we can hope."

Towards the end of the journey, the oscillations got worse. From conversing with the crew, Llaxan reported that there was some issue with the Gellar field, which was in no way reassuring. The generator was running overly hot, among other things, and at the enginseer's recommendation Yujavriel sent Severian to hold an exhaust port open manually. Back braced, Severian held it as widely as he could, feeling the steam rush past his armor.

No one really knew what happened if your Gellar field failed in the Warp, but as the reason for that was a lack of survivors, Severian didn't exactly have much trust in his power armor to protect him. His helmet was on nevertheless, to avoid scalding.

"Huh," Melanan said as he walked by. "I'm to relieve you, Severian."

"I don't need relief," Severian truthfully said. "How are the crew?"

"Panicking," Melanan said, "but doing their jobs. I'm not sure you'll find anyone willing to work on this thing after we get out. It wasn't this bad before."

"The flight to Pazmazan was pretty bad."

"Yes, but we survived it without need for a miracle. And Imperial Truth means there aren't any miracles."

"Miracles don't exist," Severian acknowledged, "but luck does."

"That's just you," Melanan said. "Well, let's all pray to your phenomenal luck, then. Probably about as useful as praying to the Omnissiah, here. Anyway, I'm relieving you. Go to the bridge and get yourself a new assignment."

Severian didn't get one. As he entered the bridge, ignominiously holding onto a handrail so as to not get thrown off his feet, there was a great bang, and the Immortal Howl fell out of Warp.

"Status report!"

"Power nominal!"

"Life support functional!"

"Navigatorium at 40% functionality!"

"Sensorium nominal!"

So it went, down the roll, with one exception. "Gellar generator, respond!"

"They won't respond," Melanan said, stumbling onto the bridge. His armor was charred, one arm twisted so badly Severian was surprised to see it still moved. "That deck is gone."

The lockdown had triggered automatically, it turned out, if belatedly. A hundred crew members were dead. Repairs would take weeks - if they had been at a world capable of handling them, which they obviously weren't. As it was, though, there was muted celebration among the crew of the _Immortal Howl_ , because the accursed ship had finally done itself in, and only took _some_ of them along. Reassignment wouldn't be pleasant for everyone, but it beat death.

The system scans showed up quite quickly, first from the _Immortal Howl_ itself and then transmitted from the newly refitted _Bucephelus_. There were three habitable planets, all on highly elliptical orbits due to stable resonance with a gas giant. The one nearest the sun had a rich native biosphere, but no sign of human habitation detectable from orbit; the furthest one was largely glaciated, and held only ruins.

The middle world was the exception. Information scrolled down before the eyes of the Astartes, listing its many unpleasant qualities. Its long orbit enforced long periods of glaciation; it was tectonically hyperactive, with great bursts of volcanism; its native ecosystem seemed to be magnified itself, with signs of a possible biological formation that showed up on the gravity scans. Any civilization on this world would have to face summers of fire and winters of ice, attacks of hostile beasts, and the knowledge that the very land it stood on would pass into memory. It was a world on which human life should have been impossible.

And yet it was dotted, all the same, with the marks of civilization.

This was such a surprise that the first name drafted into the cogitators for the planet was Improbabilis. But that was soon replaced with the local term.

Fenris.


	29. 2-07: Valmar 1

He ran with the wolves, as he had since the first day he remembered.

The first day - the smoke of his capsule, the smoke of distant volcanoes, the snow swirling, drenching the valley-web in winter fur. The maw of the packmother, weighing whether to devour him or adopt him.

She had chosen the latter, and since that day he was with the black-manes.

And now the howls of the pack rang louder, more desperately. Helwinter had come, hunger-shells covering the high places of the world. In the distance the wolf-eye was small and dim, setting bloody upon the mountains. It held blood, yet no food. Few places held food, here in the thick of winter.

He was a summer child, and this dark-time was his first. The pack's howls were hoarse, their prey mountain-split, and the snow was a white flame for his dark skin as it was to the wolves' fur.

But now he smelled food, and the pack believed him. He was special, he knew even then. He was not like the other wolves, not quite a wolf at all, but he was one of the pack, a pathfinder. Clever, cleverer even than Geri, and as fierce a fighter as Hral, and faster to heal than any of them. Yet with such blessings came the call to aid the pack.

And so they ran to the smell, which they found was at the wood-bound of a human village. They rushed into the building, Rikri tearing open the throat of the only guard before he could scream. He felt unease at that, but he knew the death-thirst of his packmates, and did not stand against it.

There, for the first time in a moon-path, their hunger was sated on the meat and berries of the human feast-den.

It was only days later that he understood the reckoning his actions had brought upon the pack. The human prey-seekers tracked their path, and they came at them, some with the moon-blades that he already understood as axes, others with the river-spitters that he, subconsciously, recognized as bows. It was a large party, so many humans that the alpha saw at once that they could not slay them all. Yet they were cornered, and so they fought, to last-howl full at the least.

It was a fierce battle, the first true battle he felt. They were prey now, but they were still wolves, and so they reaped a heavy toll. Some, like Rikri, leapt into the midst of the human pack, tearing desperately, but he fought to defend the wolves around him, and so he did not advance far. Blood poured from his skin-cuts, but they healed, and so he stood, and Hral and Geri next to him. But the wolves were too few, and the time came when the alpha was slain, and they all knew there was no escape

Yet at some point a change came over the humans, perhaps when they saw him clearly for the first time. They pointed and yelled, though over the death rattles it was hard to tell what; and when they came for him next it was with rope rather than blade. He thought of resisting, but instead he let them tie him up alive, along with Hral and Geri, in the hope that they might let them live.

It was luck-sight, nothing more. It proved true. The humans surrounded him and the two bound wolves, talking among themselves, and in the quiet he could make something out of the words.

"Do you have a name?" one of the axe-bearers asked him. (He did not yet understand the question fully, but he felt its essence.)

He said nothing; the only memory that flashed through his mind was the sigil XVIII etched onto his sky-den. The pack had a howl-mark for him, but it bore no analogue in human language; and he had never bothered translating it, as he unconsciously had to the names of his packmates.

"He is wild," another said. "He will not understand you. But how the wolves could have taken him in... impossible. We shall take him to the king's hall, and seek his counsel, for this is surely an omen."

"An omen of what?" a she-hunter asked.

"Change," the other, who seemed to be the alpha of this pack, said. "Beyond that, only the Allfather knows."


	30. 2-08: Thengir 1

When the child was brought before him in chains, Thengir was frankly confused.

He could not have been a criminal, and he was too quiet to be mad, and there had been no raid that would have captured him, for whatever purpose. What was more, Thengir could tell that he was truly strong, for the young age he seemed to have. But strangest of all was his dark brown skin, like none of the peoples on Fenris that Thengir knew.

"What is the meaning of this?" he asked of Thost.

The hunter scratched his lush beard and began the tale. Wolves raiding a granary - bold, certainly. It was a bad winter. But not as absurd as blackmane wolves raising a human child as their own. The beasts ate men, certainly - indeed, Thengir's cousin Lergi had died from being mauled by one.

And where was the child from, anyhow? He was an upplander, some whispered, perhaps a child of the gods thrown down to Fenris. Others whispered of sorcery. Certainly, the story Thost told of the child's healing spoke to the influence of wyrd, though Thengir trusted it little. If runes could let men heal so easily, Fenris would have been a very different place.

Helga, the crone whose advice was often the wisest of all Thengir's court, simply shook her head. "If the tale Thost tells is true," she said, "the child's mind will be stunted. He will be a wolf at heart forever, and never learn the tongue of men. It would have been kinder to kill him."

Thengir listened to them all, but as he did so he looked at the boy. "He is strong," he finally decided, "and the Russ could use that strength. Let him be raised at court, and be taught our ways." He took a look further, at the similarly bound wolves. "Perhaps he will be a berserker, at the least."

Helga sighed and shook her head, but on this occasion she was proven wrong. The boy learned the tongue of men within days. He spent those first days wandering the winter camp of the Russ, his wolf brothers ever trailing at his side. The Russ gave them a wide berth at first, but with time they recognized that the wolves - Geri and Hral - recognized the boy as their alpha, and would not attack unless prompted or starved.

If Geri and Hral were mainly interested in the food the Russ had in store, though, the boy proved different. He played some with the other children, but his strength was such that the contests soon bored them both, though he was careful never to hurt the other children. He listened to the songs of the skalds, but on the whole he was quiet, and seemed to fit uneasily in the world of men.

It was a week after his arrival at court that the boy first wandered into old Torer's forge. By Torer's account, he had stood there, amazed at its workings, and asked Torer to teach him the craft of the smith. Torer was skeptical.

"He is strong, to be sure," Torer said, "but I would not take an apprentice on strength alone. This is a child who lived with wolves, for Mother Fenris's sake. He has not even _wielded_ a weapon!"

"He learned the tongue of men within days of first hearing our speech," Thengir said. "It is your business, of course, who you shall take as your apprentice, and perhaps he will be unfit. But do not dismiss the boy so easily."

But Torer spoke truly enough that the boy's prowess would do more good on the field of battle than anywhere else, Thengir concluded. The very first spar with Astar, his champion, proved as much. The boy fought fiercely, and eventually grappled Astar so fiercely and so unexpectedly as to almost win. "He will be a great warrior," Astar had said, wounded. But the boy had not reacted as expected to his near-victory: instead of pride in his accomplishment, or even sulking from excessive expectations, he had been concerned about Astar's injuries (his own had, as usual, healed so quickly that Thengir wondered if the boy could come back from death itself). It was a concern; the boy was too kind-hearted by half. Sometimes this was good - he was often helpful around the village - but it cast doubt on what would happen when war came.

The boy, the boy... He was the talk of the encampment, in these weeks following his discovery, and Thengir ultimately concluded that he needed a name. He was not a man prone to putting off such decisions, and so that very evening, as his warriors feasted in the great hall, he stood up. Spring was nearing, in this time, and already the great drifts were lessening, bit by bit. Soon the day would come when they would once again be able to farm, and to fight.

And so, then, Thengir stood at the head of the table, and called the youth to him, and named him Valmar of the Russ. "May your deeds be great," he said, "no matter what path you choose in life."

Valmar knelt. "Thank you, my king," he said. "I shall strive not to disappoint your trust."

Thengir looked out at his retinue as they applauded the boy. No, he thought, Valmar's promise was not unwelcome, but it was not necessary, either.

He already knew that there was greatness in Valmar, perhaps better than Valmar knew it himself.


	31. 2-09: Valmar 2

Torer was not entirely happy to take him on, and Valmar was not sure if he would have, without the word of King Thengir. "I have taught three blacksmiths already," he said. "You might go to one of them, instead of me."

"You are a better teacher than any of them would be," Valmar said, because it was true. Torer's apprentices were good men, and they knew the secrets of steel, but they had difficulty explaining even the most basic things about the function of a forge, especially when they were drunk (as they often.

And Torer knew this too, for he sighed and took Valmar on. "But," he said, "I will not be a father to you, but only a master and teacher. There was little enough kindness in my heart when I was young, and when Estrid died the last of my love went with her. I offer you the sweat of honest work, and the secrets of the forge; nothing more."

Valmar nodded, and accepted, for he had not wanted more.

Torer was not a cruel master, and rarely beat Valmar. But he was a harsh one, all the same, as he had to be. "Jewelry and plowshares and artisan's tools," he would say, "are all well and good, and without them a tribe cannot survive. But weapons are the work by which you will be judged, and until you can hammer a scythe perfectly with your eyes closed, it would be folly to have you make a blade." And he would criticize Valmar's work, calling it worthless, but mentioning in those tirades the ways to improving it.

Valmar listened. It was one of the first things he had recognized with humans, the importance of listening. Among the wolves what was known was known, but among humans there was so much lore to learn. He felt his own secrets, sometimes, when ideas came to him in the forge not from his own imagination, but out of something like memory.

Was he human, or was he wolf? The truth was, he suspected he was neither. He grew faster than any man in the aett, that was certain. Some whispered that he was a spirit. Yet he looked more like a man than a wolf, and in any case he was accepted among both. So while Valmar wondered, often, he did not allow himself overly deep melancholy.

Harl and Geri helped keep him grounded, too, trailing after him across the village's streets and accompanying either Valmar or Astar in their hunts, or sometimes Jorin, who was Torer's young nephew. They were wholly wolves, none questioned that, but they were far cleverer than most of the pack had been. Sometimes, Valmar wondered if Geri could understand human speech.

So the days passed, Valmar spending much of his time in the forge. He spent some time training to defend the aett, of course, and there his great strength was also a great blessing; and meanwhile others scouted or mined or fished, and also readied themselves. This land, Unaeslan, was young still, and strong, and so the Russ were ready to remain here for years to come, but the portents of the rune-casters spoke of war, which surprised no one at all. Unaeslan was young, and strong, and so every other tribe would seek to take it; and if the Russ were not the richest of tribes, neither were they so poor as to lack plunder to have taken from them.

But Thengir had his own intent. "The Sala think us weak," he said. "They have spilled much Russ blood, in the last summer, and this summer they will seek to take Unaeslan from us. But the Sala are wrong, and we will prove it! We will slaughter them as they would have slaughtered us. Last summer they failed to take our land - this time, they will not even have the chance to try!"

Thengir called for warriors. His einherjar would sail with him, of course, and young men from all the tribe took their places on the longships, for plunder and glory. Jorin was deemed too young to go, and he accepted that judgment rather than try to sneak away. "I will not prove their words right," he told Valmar. "But you could surely sail with them; only a fool could doubt that you are strong enough. Why do you not?"

"I have too much to learn still," Valmar answered. "And besides, some must remain to guard the aett."

Truth be told, he remained unsure about the whole endeavor. It was one thing to protect the village, to fight for one's own. Quite another, to burn the longhouses of another tribe, kill their men, and enslave their women. He knew it was the way of the world, but the Russ were not starving, and this attack would only further fuel the feud with the Sala. And, after all, had his pack stormed a Sala granary instead, he would have been one of them rather than one of the Russ.

Wolves did not war. They hunted, of course, and at times they killed one another at the fringes of their territories, but war in the human matter was foreign to Valmar.

Still, it was hard not to get caught up in the excitement. And two days before the ships would set sail, Torer bade Valmar to forge his first sword.

"You believe I am ready?" Valmar asked.

Torer sighed. "Before summer peaks," he said, "you will have surpassed me. The main reason I had you making plowshares is that we need them now, and more than we need blades."

Valmar was stunned. Torer had praised him rarely, but he heard enough to know he was a fast learner; yet to complete an apprenticeship within one Fenrisian year was unheard-of, even with a less exacting master than Torer.

A week after Valmar bid the longships farewell, he faced his first true challenge. With so many men gone, he had gone hunting, with Geri and Hral at his heels, and easily tracked an elk. Yet when he found the beast, he saw immediately that he was not alone. A cave bear looked up from its feast to immediately growl at Valmar and, before he could back off, rumbled forward. Geri and Hral were behind him, the wolves cautious but signaling that they would fight with him.

Valmar attacked first, throwing down his bow and raising the warhammer he had forged himself the previous day. He charged, swiping aside one rake of the bear's claws, taking the second to his side, and Hral was there, hanging onto its arm, and then Valmar struck and struck true. The hammer pulped the bear's skull in one hit, thick though it was, and Valmar carried the carcass back to the village. Yet in the process the steel gave way, the hammer's head snapping off. The metal had been poor, Valmar would discover; and it was fortunate indeed that one strike had sufficed.

He was greeted with acclaim, for both his feat of arms and the fact that the bear would feed all the village for days. Even the refugees from nearby Heing, a village of the Russ that had been flooded by a lava flow a few days prior - even they ate well that evening.

They were ready to leave their village, too, at the first sign the godhi or the scouts gave; if you sunk roots too deep into Fenris, fire would end you in due time. Of course, if you didn't put down any roots at all, failed to farm, then you would starve in the ice nine times out of ten. But the land was quiet, this spring, and so Valmar instead decided to forge himself a new hammer.

It was initially undecorated, on the outside. But within, Valmar used techniques he only half-understood and Torer did not understand at all, yet allowed. Its structure was intricate layers of various alloys and some things that would sooner belong to the glassblower or the jewelrer, because for the first time Valmar had truly let his imagination and his memories loose. The hammer was easy to swing, in the end, despite its weight - easy for Valmar, at least - and its destructive power was unmatched. And under Torer's urging,Valmar did eventually inscribe its handle with designs of the great beasts of Fenris, krakens' tentacles clashing with the fiery breath of drakes. It was the first of Valmar's creations that he was truly proud of, even if he only half-understood how he had made it.

"That will do," Torer said upon looking at it, though all throughout the process he had complained at what Valmar was doing with his smithy. "That will do indeed."

And then, embracing his charge, he pronounced a shocked Valmar Russ a master smith, and an apprentice no more. "I have nothing more to teach you," he said. "It would be more fitting for you to teach me. I would be honored to see whatever you do next, though. Why, the gods themselves surely await it with excitement."

But then, Valmar thought, he himself would love to know what to do next too.

Well, if nothing else, he would have to build his own forge. And he had more than a few ideas about its design...


	32. 2-10: Jorin 1

When Thengir and the einherjar came back from the raid, Jorin could see from their faces that it had not gone well. True, plunder they brought back aplenty - food, especially. But too many threads had been cut, too many Russ warriors left behind on Sala soil.

Jorin ran to tell Valmar of this news, running between the light houses of the encampment to the place where Valmar was building his new smithy, almost by himself.

It was a vast foundation, placed on the slope of a small hill and away from the bulk of the village. Some had joked that Valmar was building a keep. Only jokes. None would impugn Valmar's honor, and besides, anyone could see the anvil.

"This land is good," Valmar said when Jorin came, "the best in south Unaeslan, but the lava flows will come to it. Not this year; perhaps the next, more likely several years after that. Perhaps I should have built smaller."

"Do you know that from wyrd?" Jorin asked. Valmar was not known to be spirit-touched; though he had the strength of two men and the mind of three, he did not call down storms or cast the runes. But he was mighty, and Jorin was truly proud to call him friend.

"No," Valmar said. "The pattern - there are places where the land is weak. The signs are faint, but they are there. Where the fire of the underworld is rising. That does not mean an eruption will happen, only that it may, nor can it be said with certainty how long the land will remain quiet."

Jorin bit his lip. He wanted to ask Valmar to teach him, to teach the whole village - for such a skill as this would be invaluable to spread, even though Valmar seemed not to realize that, as he so often underestimated his worth; but first, he had to say the words he had come here to say. "The King has returned," he said. "But many threads were cut."

Valmar hesitated a little before smiling and nodding. "It is good that some were not, at least," he said. "We will need them, should the Sala strike back, as they surely will."

Jorin wondered at that, too. Valmar spoke as a man, sometimes, certainly with wisdom far past his years, or Jorin's for that matter. But still, as they went to greet the returning warriors, he also smiled with a joy that - well, it wasn't childish, but neither was it merely relief.

Valmar embraced some of the returnees. Leif Hemligjaga especially received a hug that seemed to nearly choke him. Jorin clapped the rune-caster on the back, afterwards, which caused Leif to further sigh. "You're growing up strong," he said, "both of you. But please try not to kill me with that strength."

They feasted that night, to the returning warriors, and not two days later Valmar finished the great forge. Jorin helped him to stoke the fires for the first time. "I think," Valmar said after a while, "that I can find a way to guard this building, against the flows."

"Perhaps," Jorin said, for he dared not say that anything was impossible for Valmar. "But would it not be eventually buried in rock, then?"

"Unaeslan would sink into the Savage Sea sooner," Valmar answered.

It was that night that the messenger came from Elgota, carrying grim news. "A drake," he told the household of King Thengir. Elgota was half-burnt, and now the drake would surely come for a larger hearth. And so a party of hunters was chosen to hunt the beast down, and slay it in its lair; and Valmar was chosen to lead it.

"Ragnar is more senior," he protested. But Ragnar merely smiled, and so Valmar took leadership of men for the first time.

It was not easy. Valmar proved an excellent tracker to find prey, but drakes flew, and so they had little more than guesswork. Elgota was burned twice more and abandoned, they would later learn, in the time it took them to find that cavern. But they found food aplenty, and in time they found the cave, nestled in the flank of a mountain not far from the iron vein the Russ generally mined from.

"There are two entrances, at least," Valmar said. "I will find the other one, with Geri and Hral, and Jorin and Leif too. The rest of you will stand guard, and form a shieldwall to slay the drake when it tries to flee."

Jorin went, following Valmar's deliberate steps. He kept watch, and soon pointed out a plume of steam across the shoulder. He called Valmar and Leif up, and pointed it out.

"This is the same cave," Valmar said when they had reached the mouth.

"How do you know?" Jorin wondered.

"The smell," Valmar said neutrally. "There may be a third entrance, but I don't believe so."

They went in, hooting and clanking to try and scare the drake either away from or towards them. The air was hot, and after a time Jorin and Leif were both sweating heavily, even though they had mostly undressed. Valmar seemed unaffected. "There," he eventually said, and then a single word of warning.

The drake flew at them, not away. Or rather, it mostly ran, within the tight confines of the cave. Its wings beat against the warriors, and the wolves jumped at it, tearing those wings. Valmar struck his hammer against the side of its head, half-crushing the skull, but even so it still breathed a stream of fire that caused drops of melt to appear on the side of the cavern, where it hit. Yet the blow had turned that breath to the side, and it hit none of them save Valmar. Yet Valmar was hurt, burned badly, and the hammer dropped from his hands -

And then Jorin felt his hair step up, and there was lightning, and Leif was calling down the sky's wrath upon the animal; and he grabbed Valmar's hammer and pounded the drake's head again. Its wings were shredded by the blackmanes' efforts, but still it fought, until Valmar raised his hands from where he lay with a grunt and clasped its neck, bringing it down to the ground. With that, Jorin pounded its hammer into the head, and the drake was dead at last.

They were all breathing heavily, after that. Valmar struggled to his feet. "Let us hope," he said, "that there was only one." The wolves' hair was matted with blood, some of it theirs. And Leif was barely conscious from the exertion of his power. Yet they still walked onwards.

There had indeed been only one. But as they entered the next chamber, they realized why the drake had charged them instead of fleeing.

"Eggs," Leif said, blandly.

"Four eggs," Jorin said, giving Valmar's warhammer back to the smith. "Who shall smash them?"

Valmar looked carefully at the eggs.

"No one," he said. "I am taking them with me."

Leif's eyes widened. "Are you sure you can tame a drake, Valmar?" he asked.

"No," Valmar admitted. "But precisely because of that, I must try."


	33. 2-11: Valmar 3

The weave of fate passed, some loops in fire, others in ice. Winter and summer danced in their unending rhythm. The village moved twice, but Valmar's forge, as he had expected, held true, a lava flow once nearing it but being steered away by the channel he'd made.

Valmar grew to his full height, which dwarfed that of normal men. Geri and Hral, too, grew to adulthood. They still followed Valmar, recognizing him as alpha. Together they hunted, and at night they would curl in and sleep before the forge's fire.

As to the drakes, Valmar had half-succeeded. Two of the hatchlings had proved violent, and he killed them before they could grow too large. But the other two recognized him as master, if tenuously. He suspected he would never repeat this experiment, at least not unless Arnir and Gandr perished (and drakes could live for centuries, unlike even blackmane wolves). The drakes barely tolerated each other, and would never accept any third to their flight.

They liked the forge, too, nesting on its chimneys but flying down to Valmar's hand when the time came. Many reptiles, the godhis said, did not have the memory for such things; but then, drakes were clever, moreso than the credit they usually received. Beastbinder, some called him now, for this.

"Do you plan to add any more animals," Jorin once asked him with a grin, "to this menagerie?"

"There are beasts smart enough that I would fight beside them - bears, mammoths..." Valmar paused. "But no, not here. A village is no place for the beasts of the wild. The wolves are all that remain of my pack, and the drakes are barely possible to deal with, and that is why they are here."

"Can you talk to them?!" Jorin asked, shocked.

He couldn't, of course, and said as much. Animals did not think as people, but they thought all the same. Still, he did not hesitate to hunt them. That too was the way of the world.

As he talked with Jorin, that evening, he built the mold for King Thengir's new blade. The sword was intricately decorated, and it would hold an edge for decades. When Valmar told the king this, he laughed. "The blade will outlive me, is what you mean to say."

"I didn't - "

Thengir laughed. "I meant no insult, Valmar Beastbinder. You know as well as I do that my days grow short. And it will be good to have held a blade like this before my thread is cut."

Valmar was no stranger to death, of course. Indeed, the previous winter, they had found old Torer dead - just like that, in his bed, his heart having given out. He had seemed hale enough when he had visited Valmar's forge the day before, and spoken about what it held. It deserved, perhaps, a name of greater scope now; the complex included a dam and watermill from the river below, and a steam engine that drew the heat from the ground itself, doing more work than even Valmar had time for; and it was also well-defended, against both the rage of the earth and enemy attack.

There were fewer other smiths now, as a result. Valmar did take an apprentice, a brilliant youth called Hicond, but then what they did was not just smith's work. Some of what they made was cookware and gates and such, but Valmar had grander schemes, too, in particular dreams of a wagon that traveled on its own. Perhaps even a metal ship.

But before any of those dreams could become reality, the Sala at last struck their true counterblow.

They were not alone. The Sala alone would have been no threat. But the Eing and the Thockjav joined them, and they came at the Russ partially with shouts of maleficarum, accusations leveled at Valmar for the work he did, and otherwise with sheer greed and hunger.

"I could give myself up," Valmar said at council. "The Eing at least would likely retreat, then."

Thengir vehemently refused. "You are worth more in combat than all the Eing," he said.

But still Valmar was hesitant, because he had never made war like this before. He had tracked criminals and fought back raids, but that was a lesser thing by far than to stand against entire tribes. Jorin, ever insightful, asked him if he was afraid. Valmar said, truthfully, that he was.

Even Valmar did not know, though, whether he feared the enemy or himself.

They attacked at dawn. Archers on the palisade filled the air with arrows, but even against a darkened sky the Sala and Eing and Thockjav went on. The Russ fought them on the wall, and Valmar noted, then, that half of them wielded weapons that he and Hicond'd had a hand in.

But the wall and the shieldwall were both fragile, and so Valmar, as agreed, led a charge against the enemy. As the einherjar fought on the wall, he brought his warhammer around, its spiked head throwing corpses into the distance.

Was this right, he wondered? It was not as if he could disprove the Eing's worry of maleficarum. For all he knew, he really was a wight or a daemon. And even if not, spilling so much blood made him uneasy.

But he fought regardless, and Geri and Hral fought by his side, and Jorin and Leif and so many others too, almost a retinue of his own from the bonds he had forged through the years. And as the enemy tribes broke under their assault, as the entire flank bent and fled, as a glimpse of the beacon Hicond was keeping atop the forge sparked in his eyes, as Arnir swooped down to blow fire onto the Sala charge near the center - as all of this was happening, Valmar realized that in the end, he had been born for this, as much as he had been born for creation.

The thought filled him with no happiness, but no sadness either. Wyrd was wyrd, and if he was to be a fighter as much as he was an artisan - well, in that case he would do his best as both. For the world was a place of both: destruction and creation, predator and prey, fire and ice.

Darkness, and light.


	34. 2-12: Thengir 2

"Valmar's done it," Jara yelled to him. "The Eing have broken!"

Thengir grunted in understanding, putting all of his strength into the shield. Not the strength that he had born in younger days, that was certain. Once he had been the equal to any warrior of the Russ, but time stole that away, as it did all things.

He wondered if it the day would come when Valmar's strength would ebb, too. He suspected not, but who could say the will of the gods?

But he still fought, still stabbed forwards with his spear. The Sala had gathered enough allies to break them, but he would not be the last king of the Russ. Even if it killed him, he would not let his people die without him being among them.

Besides, he saw the drakes wheeling overhead, breathing great streams of fire onto the Sala center. They wouldn't hold. Not because they couldn't - their arrows could bring a drake down still - but because Valmar was coming. Even Thengir, uncomfortable as his position was, could see him crashing into the Eing's side, and hear the growling of the wolves. They had grown large, and they fought smart. If wolves did that more often, there would have been little room for men on Fenris.

The pressure finally relented, and Thengir took a look about his einherjar. Some of them had themselves grown old, though all were younger than Thengir. Others were young, still, Holef barely a man, Jara barely a woman. But many of the younger warriors of the Russ, he had not called, for he could feel the underworld's breath on himself. And if he were to die, he much preferred it be in battle.

"To the left," he called. There the melee was turning the Thockjav's way, and it was Russ blood that stained the snow. They ran, Thengir lagging behind ever so slightly. He was not sure if his warriors could see it, but he certainly could.

It didn't matter. Not in these moments. He could still fight.

And he did fight, not in a wall this time but in the chaos of melee. He cut down a wounded, and seemingly lost, Sala, then crossed blades with a Thockjav once, twice, and stabbed him through the heart on the third. Then he ran forward, further, seeing Jara block a blow that would have ended him. But instead he stabbed forward, weaving to the side of another strike, and buried his sword in another man's guts.

But the next moment, he realized he was almost alone, and surrounded by foes. Had he charged too far, or had they all fallen? No time to tell. He struck, and struck again, back-to-back with Astar, but they were too much.

It was a chieftain that felled him, cutting his left arm and, as Thengir staggered back, driving his own spear through him and Astar both. Thengir fell, and tried to breathe. It was too painful. There was no way for him to survive this.

But then the wall of foes parted, and Thengir of the Russ, in his last moments, saw the greatest sight he would ever witness.

Valmar fell onto his foes like nothing less than a kraken. The Thockjav did not flee, at first, but with every swipe of his hammer he smote three of them, and they were smart enough to know where this was going. They stabbed at Valmar, naturally, but even the blades that pierced his armor could barely make him bleed, and the Beastbinder had a great deal of blood to spare.

He knelt down to Thengir when he got to him, even as Jara was trying to hold him up. "My king," she said, crying - but then Valmar was crying too, and Jorin and Leif by his side.

"Show me the field," he ordered, and they turned him to look down from the wall. There were corpses scattered before the village, and there were men running into the woods, and there were Russ sitting around him.

They had won.

"Valmar," he said - croaked, really, with the last of his strength. "You will be a good king. Be also a great one."

Valmar seemed stunned. Thengir wanted to laugh. He always thought too little of himself, despite the songs the skalds told of him. There would be none who would have contested his ascension, even had Thengir not named him heir here. But he had no strength to laugh, and so instead he lay his hand on Valmar's foot and, nodding, closed his eyes.

Thus ended Thengir of the Russ, overlooking slain enemies and holding onto hope for his people.


	35. 2-13: Bulveye 1

Bulveye had not expected to become one of Valmar's einherjar.

There were not many warriors to choose from, perhaps. And in some sense Valmar did not need a retinue, or rather needed them only as companions and not as guards. Two days after he became king, an assassin had come after the Beastbinder, and not enough of her body was left to bury.

But for one reason or another, Valmar called him, and who was Bulveye to refuse? Only a youth, hungry for glory as they all were. Younger than Valmar, even, the first of his retinue to be thus.

Though years did not affect Valmar quite the same way as the rest of them.

They had passed, regardless. Bulveye had been a child when Thengir met his doom, and since then he had seen the Russ grow. Valmar was a quiet king, disinterested in women and little-affected by drink, often wandering the wild, where some said he befriended the mammoths and the bears - and certainly they ceased attacking the Russ, after a time. But there were far more beasts than even Valmar could tame in the forests, and the Russ still had to contend with some of their attacks.

And if Valmar spent time alone in the woods, he spent also time wandering the village, speaking to even - perhaps especially - the humblest farmer, learning of his people as individuals to understand them as a whole. He had talked to Bulveye twice, before he named him to the einherjar.

And Bulveye trusted his king's judgment. The Russ had been in deep trouble when Thengir had died, for all that they had beaten back the invasion. But Valmar had made friends of some chiefs, deflected the anger of others, and so the Russ had found several years of peace, to rebuild.

"But," Valmar said the evening after Bulveye was called up, "our peace is at an end."

There was a pregnant silence. Bulveye decided that he might as well break it. "What do you mean, my king?"

"He means," Jorin Bloodhowl said, who was ever closest in Valmar's councils and at his side in battle, "that Unaeslan will sink within the year, at best."

Valmar nodded. "I have been on the eastern isles," he said. "They are already half gone, and the quakes will soon sunder Unaeslan too. And the mammoths are swimming away already, and soon the bears will join them. We must begin the migration within weeks - mayhaps I have left it too long already. But I will miss this land, when it is gone." He took a look around the hall. It was not only warriors who sat in the places of honor - Hicond, who could make a sword better than anyone save the king but was terrible with one in his hands, sat beside Valmar, and there were many wise men and women around the table, and some who were clever without being wise, and some who were skilled without being clever. But few, Bulveye noted, even among the warriors, who were truly stupid, or cruel. Even Nis, who had been a chief's wife once, was denied a place today.

Did that mean that Valmar valued Bulveye's counsel? That, Bulveye did not know, but if Beastbinder did, then it would be precisely for his newness.

But for now, he let older men and women speak of where they might go. "There will be war," Valmar eventually said, "no matter where we go. That is the way of the world, and I accept it. But there will not be permanence, in any of the islands and continents you suggest. There is only one place where we can find that, on Fenris."

"You mean to go to Asaheim," Jorin realized with wide eyes.

Asaheim, the fabled land of the gods. Its slopes rose from the sea, next to impossible to scale; it was colder than any other land of Fenris, and full of the worst of its beasts. To go there was to step near death.

And yet, though it seemed madness, Valmar spoke to them to sail to Asaheim, and the Russ followed. The fire of Valmar's forge was said to be enough to warm even Asaheim, and so perhaps it was inevitable that Valmar would test that.

They mounted their drekkars, and set sail. Asaheim was easy to find; one sailed north, and in time one would come to it. Bulveye stood on the stern and watched his birthland sink into fire behind him. It burned in the night, a red line on the horizon, and Bulveye dreamed of the rivers he had learned sailcraft in bring consumed by those eruptions. Later, he knew, he would return to this place and find nothing there at all. They were lucky to have Unaeslan last as long as it did.

Tribes watched them sail with wariness as they approached, and with relief as they receded. Valmar's wolf brothers were quiet during the journey, but tense. The two great drakes, meanwhile, wheeled above them, screeching incessantly.

They ate well, though. It was a warm summer, and the waters were full of fish that tried live and eat and breed before winter caged them in ice.

At one point a kraken came up, tentacles spread, seeming to cover every side of their boats. It took Valmar one throw of the harpoon, though, to kill it. "It was a juvenile," he said as they roasted the meat. "Then again, they never truly reach adulthood. They never stop growing. Eventually there is nothing more to sate their hunger, I think. Though some say that the largest krakens span half the worldsea."

So they came to Asaheim, still eating kraken meat, and barely stopped themselves from crashing onto its cliffs. In the end they left their ships on a narrow tidal strip below one such cliff, which seemed to reach up for a mile above them. There was next to no way up, but Valmar bade them stay, for now.

Then he patted Arnir and climbed atop the drake's back. And the drake, though it clearly strained beneath the king's weight, soared up into the sky, along the cliff, until it was so high it seemed merely a dot in the sky.

Bulveye turned to Jorin. "Has he done that before?" he asked.

"No," said Jorin flatly.

From above, Valmar found them a path upwards. It was perilous, and iced over, and some whose footing was unsure fell to their deaths. But they made it up, step by step, carrying their supplies and tools and the wood of the disassembled ships from camp to camp bit by bit.

It was on that trek that Bulveye at last worked up the courage to go to Jorin.

"Jorin," he said, "you know the mind of Valmar better than anyone. What do you know, that I do not, that makes this voyage something besides suicide?"

"Perhaps I know Valmar better than anyone," Jorin said, "but I do not know him well."

Bulveye stopped in his tracks. "You have not asked him."

"I have not."

"Then," Bulveye said, pulling the older warrior along, "we will ask him, now."

Jorin growled, but followed Bulveye to the camp, and to the bulk of Valmar, in deep conversation with a skald. When he saw the two warriors, he turned to face them, and Bulveye looked to Jorin.

"My king," Jorin said, "I would speak to you in private." He indicated Bulveye would be taken with them. Valmar narrowed his eyes, but followed them, Geri and Hral warily at his heels. Then, when they were clear of the route, among the crags, Jorin took a deep breath and said, "Valmar, please tell me we're not committing suicide here."

Valmar looked to him and to Bulveye, the younger warrior realizing instantly that the king knew exactly how this had come about, and sighed.

"You must forgive me my dramatics," he said. "I do have a plan, aye. It is built of dreams and half-remembered fragments, but it is enough to keep the Russ alive here. I will explain when we reach the plateau."

Jorin nodded.

"And perhaps I should have said more earlier..." Valmar shook his head. "The business of a king, I have learned, is mainly to listen, and to know. To know the thread of every person of every aett. And when a king acts, it is with the advice of men like you, Jorin, Bulveye. Even a king such as me cannot rule without that - or perhaps I could, but not well.

"But sometimes, I have learned, a king must not merely act, but act decisively. Act grandly, so as to remind not just his people, but Fenris himself, that he is a king, that his will shapes the world. After two years of rule, I at last have done so for the first time. These are the moments that songs are made of." Valmar looked down, at the breaking sea a dead drop below them, at the fringe of ice beyond it, the fury of the worldsea crashing upon Asaheim and capable of nothing more. "Songs of triumph and songs of disaster both."


	36. 2-14: Valmar 4

When they came at last to the roof of Asaheim, above the great cliffs, Valmar heard gasps from the einherjar behind him - and those were not men easily surprised.

"I had thought it would be a wasteland," Hasa admitted.

"Of course not," Leif scoffed. He was an old godhi now, and often played the part. "Asaheim is full of monsters, everyone knows this. But monsters have to eat something, do they not?"

The hanging valley was covered in forest, with barely a place to stand that was not green. It was lush, and though further up it grew low it continued up to the shoulders of the great peaks. Atop the peaks, though, the ice was eternal, even now in the peak of summer.

Valmar had known, of course - had suspected, from the pattern of the rain, even before they had left Unaeslan, and had known ever since that flight atop Arnir.

"So, then," Jorin said, walking forward. "We'll have food, and space where we can farm. What next?"

Valmar looked at the landscape around them, trying to see through the trees to find the shape of the land. "We will make camp here," he said. "And then..."

He stopped, thinking about how to articulate his vision. He did not have the context for it, not truly.

How big could a settlement be, if not constrained by the tyranny of land-death?

What of the empire that such a settlement could rule?

"We will make camp here," he said. "But it is over there - " he pointed inward, to a point where the valley diverged - "at the juncture of the rivers, where we will build a sanctuary. There we will stand, and what we create will remain until the ending of the world. A center for all craft, and for trade, in due time; a place where water will run through stone houses, and from which roads will stretch to every corner of Asaheim. I do not doubt that some of us will continue to wander. I will, that is certain. But here, we and our sons, and their sons, can begin to build the work of generations." He paused, and the Russ roared.

He had received many epithets over the years. Few had stuck. But now the cries quickly settled into a pattern.

"Sky King! Sky King! Sky King!"

It bordered on blasphemy. But Valmar made no attempt to stop it. The skalds sang of his exploits, of the beasts he killed and the ones he befriended, of the armies he killed and the armies he led. He did not care much.

This, though? This was what he _wanted_ to be remembered for. This would be his true legacy.

A few moments later, the ice troll attacked.

It stumbled out of the trees, using one as a club, and Valmar barely blocked its blow with his hammer. But the clash of wood and metal went badly for the former, and the improvised club shattered. The ice troll tried to push Valmar off the cliff regardless, Valmar barely manging to beat it back, and as he shattered its skull at last he slipped, almost falling to the sea but grabbing onto the rock face and pulling himself back up. Arnir returned from his circling, giving no sign of whether he would have saved Valmar or not, had he fallen.

That set the tone for the following weeks, which were not easy even for Valmar. The Russ learned of the sleetwood around them, of what could be safely gathered and what could not, largely by trial and error. At every step they were beset by insects, and sometimes by bigger things. But cursing and struggling as they did, the Russ learned how to survive, and fight back. The walls of their sanctuary, which Valmar named Thengirik, were erected within a day, and reinforced so much that they held, even against the animals of Asaheim.

The wolves were aggressive here, but after the first pack was beaten back, Valmar convinced the others to leave Thengirik alone. The mastodons and the lesser bears, he also convinced to stay back. No doubt, the weapons of the Russ - the best on Fenris - contributed to that success. Many animals wandered into Thengirik, but none came out.

And the land really was fertile enough, if only in the lower reaches; and past a certain point it got easier, Asaheim seeming to accept them, though in truth Valmar supposed it was they who had learned its ways. And before they knew it, Valmar and Jorin and Geri and Hral were standing on the southern ridge of Asfryk and gazing down at the sanctuaries - the cities - of Torerik and Vulfik to either side of them. They were barely populated - for on Asaheim the great problem of Fenris was inverted. There was plenty of land, but too few people to work it. Roads snaked across the landscape, though it was even now untamed, in the main, and would forever remain so. Outside the fortified fields, even Valmar trod carefully, and he would not dare to try to clear land that could not be defended. And besides, men needed the wild, too, not only wolves, even if that wild sometimes killed them both.

"So," Jorin said, "I suppose I should ask the question again, Valmar, as I did when we came here. What next?"

"We could remain here," Valmar said thoughtfully. "Merely live, and laugh, and dance, and drink. But such is not the wyrd of men like me and you." He paused. "There is only one thing left to do, Jorin. Asaheim stands ready, but half-empty. We will fill it."

"With slaves?" Jorin asked.

"No," Valmar said, "of course not. The sanctuary cities are a gift, and they will not be for the Russ alone, though the Russ will always be first." He watched the circling of Arnir as he spoke, the drake munching on an elk it had found somewhere in the mountains.

"You mean to unite Fenris," Jorin said.

"Of course," Valmar said. "To weld the tribes into a single realm, without destroying them in the process. It is the only thing left, and so it is what I must do, soon. But for now... Watch the wolves, would you?"

And the wolves would watch Jorin.

Valmar, Sky King of the Russ, jumped from a running start, seeing Arnir's flight. The drake responded to his call, and then he was gripping its back, the wind rushing past, and flying, once more, southwards, towards the sea.


	37. 2-15: Jorin 2

Jorin had his doubts about his presence. He was called Bloodhowl for a reason, after all.

"I'm no envoy," he felt the need to say to Valmar. "I would not wish to give offense to the Onda, but I might do so without meaning to."

"I do not need you as an envoy," his king answered. "I need you, and Vuler and Jara, as my guard. They will be wary if I bring too many, but to bring none would speak of either weakness of arrogance."

Jorin did not need to say that such 'arrogance' would in truth be well-founded; there was likely no weapon in the world that could truly harm Valmar. He did not mention, either, his desire to spend time with Ana and his twin daughters. He had placed loyalty above all else, and he would not change that now.

The others saw him as the king's closest advisor, now. In some ways that was true, but in truth Jorin could barely keep up with Valmar, and that was when the Sky King paced himself. Like Leif and Hicond, and he supposed even the wolves and the drakes, he was a follower. And unlike them, he knew his time at Valmar's side was limited. The Sky King seemed unaging, and Leif and Hicond would be wise elders one day - but his strength was the strength of the hand. Perhaps he would fall in battle before it failed him, and perhaps he would find a place as father and advisor rather than warrior, as some did. But he was already weakening, and if Valmar had truly wanted guards Bulveye would have served him better.

But then, Bulveye would be even worse an envoy than Jorin.

They sailed on a trading vessel, drinking, planning, and listening to the songs of other lands. Valmar would correct the skald when his own deeds were spoken of, and they would all laugh at that. It was like the old days, truly, when Thengir still ruled the Russ and Unaeslan still rose from the waves. They had all changed since then, though. Even Valmar had. It showed when he took a ride atop Arnir to scout the terrain ahead, and it showed in the way he spoke when he got serious, which was less often than in Jorin's youth - if then he had become quiet and uncertain, now he spoke softly but grandly, and firmly too. The years might not have touched him, but all the things he had said and done in those years could not have left him the same.

Valmar stepped onto Arrowisle first, and called for the chief. There was some commotion at that, for it seemed the Onda had taken it as a challenge despite Valmar's words of peace - but quickly enough this was resolved, and Valmar gave his gifts of amulets and a forge hammer. And after that, of course, came the feast, and after that in turn the Onda king, Ekil, took Valmar aside and asked him why he had come.

Unsurprisingly, he did not believe Valmar's explanation.

"I cannot tell what you are offering," he said. "Is it slavery, or is it free land? The first we will not bow to without a fight, and the second... well, I have fought alongside you when I was young, Sky King, and I know you are a generous man; but even you are not so generous as that."

"I am not," Valmar acknowledged. "I do not demand slavery, but I do ask for fealty."

"Ah!" Ekil said. "So that's what it is." But he did not send them away. "Have any tribes taken that offer?"

"The Es and the Tileva." Ekil would know, as well as Jorin, that these had been failing tribes that had gone to Asaheim from desperation. "They are just as much my subjects as the Russ."

Some grumbled at that last part, of course. Men were men, and even many of the Russ women saw themselves as superior. Jorin had even cut the thread of Gerd Treebreaker of the einherjar over this. But the Onda were a different story - they were not much less mighty than the Russ had become.

"Perhaps," Ekil said. "There are many among my people who would live in Asaheim, for a time. And those of the Russ, surely, who would sail the seas again, eh? But I will not surrender my kingship."

Valmar frowned. "You - "

"I am your equal, and I would be recognized as such," Ekil said.

Jara had to suppress a laugh at that. Before the tension could grow, Jorin made himself speak, for he was not sure Valmar would. "You are a great king, without doubt," he said, "but surely you know the Sky King has no equal, not in prowess nor in wisdom."

"So the tales say," Ekil answered. "But we are not among tales. We are among men." He turned to Valmar. "Some taller than others, admittedly."

"A challenge, then," Jorin said before he could stop himself.

"A challenge," Valmar agreed, after a moment's consideration. "A contest of your choice, and the champion will rule both our people. What do you say, Ekil?" A bold stake, of course. But what was life without boldness?

Ekil looked to them. Jorin knew he could not refuse the challenge, but there were still ways out, some even honorable. But Ekil did not take them.

"If you defeat me," he said, "as you likely will, do you swear to treat my people as your own?"

"I do," Valmar said. "Do you swear the same?"

"Of course," Ekil said. "So let us sail around Arrowisle, and whoever rounds this land more quickly shall be acclaimed as the winner. And if even in this you are my better, then the Onda will do better under your rule than mine."

That Valmar would win the race was foretold. His unification of Fenris was only starting, but already, Jorin could imagine Valmar succeeding at the impossible a third time. Only -

What could come next, after that?

Jorin hoped he would live to find out.


	38. 2-16: Ulbrandr 1

The war that had come to the Iron Islands was a greater one than these lands had ever seen. Greater, perhaps, than Fenris had ever seen.

The Sala, their old foes, led the coalition. That blood-feud would be settled here, once and for all. Ulbrandr Crowhame thought, at the sight of their blood-red banners, of Thengir impaled on that spear.

Old wounds. Ulbrandr held no spite for the Sala, not really. But the Sala did hold such spite, and had gathered a great fleet of twenty tribes to storm Asaheim. Valmar led a dozen more against them, to hold their fleet at these isles. Some had been brought under his banner peacefully, other through skirmishes, none through full-scale war because that would defeat his purpose - but all in all his intentions had become clear enough for the Sala to gather this first coalition to break apart the empire of Asaheim.

And so Ulbrandr was here, trying to patch up Jorin's wounds.

Bloodhowl was not making that easy.

"Lay still, damn you," Ulbrandr said. "I'll tell you how it's going, if you don't get yourself killed by tearing the wound open."

Jorin grunted. "So how is it going, then?"

"Well enough," Ulbrandr said. "Valmar's charging the Ascomanni ships. They're breaking, of course. Gondr is burning the Sala ships, but there's a counter-press against the Onda." Jorin, of course, tried to struggle back to his feet at that. "Stay down, damn you! Think of what Ana - "

"I'm a warrior, Ulbrandr," Jorin said.

"You're no use to Valmar dead," Ulbrandr said, and at that Jorin finally quieted down.

Like a child, really. Jorin usually had more sense than that. But, Ulbrandr thought as the longship swayed with the waves, this was hardly a usual day.

The water and ice were both red, grinding up against one another and against the ships. Below, Ulbrandr thought he saw a kraken feasting on the carrion. Across islets and between them, a battle that had started as a dance of maneuvers had degenerated, as it was always going to, into a brawl to the death.

Ulbrandr patched and salved the wounds again. "Stay here," he said. "You've got many more battles to come, but you've done enough today." Hopefully, a true healer would come along to make sure of that; for now, he had to get back to the fight, for his own bloodlust was still running hot.

This was a battle that might as well have been fought at the gates of Thengirik. This was the moment in which the fate of Valmar's sanctuary would be decided.

And despite what he had said to Jorin, Ulbrandr knew it was far from certain they would win.

Valmar was close to surrounded, his wolves clawing desperately at their foes, the einherjar scattered. Gondr and Arnir had arrows sticking out of their scales. The line around the Onda was broken. Too much to do, too much to fix -

But Ulbrandr would fight for so long as he had strength.

"For Asaheim!" he yelled as he charged across the planking. "To the king!"

The press was horrible. Valmar was surrounded by Ascomanni, like a wounded mammoth with wolves hanging off every exposed surface. Ulbrandr couldn't see either Hral or Geri, and feared the worst. But warriors, exhausted, bleeding, fell in behind him. Half of them, a part of his mind noted, were unfit to fight.

They would fight anyhow, to reach Valmar.

They flowed over the desperate Ascomanni wall, but there were too few. Limbs were hacked, everything red, something slammed into Ulbrandr's side, and then he was lying prone, struggling to his feet under the heap of bodies. He shoveled them aside, and then gasped for air, to see that his charge had faltered -

But that it had succeeded, in drawing away the Ascomanni.

Ulbrandr stumbled over to his king. Valmar was kneeling, bleeding from a dozen fatal wounds, holding two tattered bodies that Ulbrandr took a moment to realize as Hral and Geri. They were still breathing, Ulbrandr realized. Somehow, they were still breathing, though not for long. Arnir, solemn, crouched next to the Sky King.

Valmar sighed and pulled out the longest of the spears, struggling to his feet.

"My king - "

"Ulbrandr." Valmar's voice had lost none of its command, though it was thin with his loss of blood. "Keep them alive."

Ulbrandr frowned. "Geri and Hral? It's a miracle they aren't dead already," he told Valmar.

"I know," Valmar said, pulling out another spear with a gush of blood. "See to it that the miracle continues. For my part, I must win this battle."

Ulbrandr bit his tongue. He did not want to speak of retreat, but this battle seemed unwinnable. The Onda had broken, and he thought he saw Ekil fall. The Wenida still held, at least, but that seemed more like they were buying time. And even now, he saw a lucky arrow pierce Gondr's eyes and bring the drake crashing into the sea.

And for all of that, Ulbrandr said nothing as Valmar lumbered once more into battle. He only bent down, reached into his pouch, and did his best to soothe the pain of two blackmane wolves, and prayed to all the spirits and gods that dwelt above.

And then, the gods answered.

It began as a swell in the west of the straits, one Ulbrandr almost missed. But then the waves resolved themselves into pieces of what looked like icebergs, what in truth was fur.

The great bears had come.

They did not spare the Russ and their allies, not fully. But their charge took them into the back of the Sala line, and Ulbrandr winced as he saw it. To be eaten by a bear was not the best of ways to have your thread cut. The bears came, tearing ships to pieces with their weight alone, and for a time all that Ulbrandr could see of the battle, in the snippets between desperately keeping Geri and Hral alive, was a series of splashes and the occasional mangled limb tossed into the distance.

In time, the feeding frenzy stopped, the bears swimming away. But there were so few of the Sala left, really. So few of all those twenty tribes.

And Bulveye - for Ulbrandr could see the young warrior's long locks even from here - led the Russ into one final charge.

Ulbrandr saw it. A few dozen axemen, only, supported by erratic fire from archers and literal fire from a grounded Arnir. But the Sala and Ascomanni and Balaari and Ronds and Samanni - they were all stacked barely one deep. They did not break; they fought to the end, but Bulveye's wedge of the best warriors the Russ had to offer charged down the beaches and into the boats, and then suddenly there was a gap, and then Valmar came from behind a mast, still bleeding, still slow, but also still Valmar.

Hammers and axes rang, but the battle was already won.

"The wolves live," Ulbrandr said when his king found him, "but only barely. Even if they will somehow recover they will remain crippled for life."

Valmar, silently, took up the bundles of fur, which seemed so much smaller now, and turned the rudder northward.

"I will find a way," he said, "in Thengirik. They will run again."

As Valmar grimly gathered a crew healthy enough to sail back, with Arnir perched at the front of the ship - as he did so, Ulbrandr trod the decks of death. The melee had been merciless, and Ulbrandr noted the bodies of the einherjar as he passed them. Yrein, Odalett, Jara. They had been his comrades for a whole lifetime, and yet they were very nearly left to the crows. Too few remained to carry back the bodies. And the fire Arnir had started was spreading, slowly but surely, over the waves; and soon Ulbrandr watched, from an island, as in its crimson embrace all the fallen and all the traces of the Battle of the Iron Islands were consumed, mortal foes burning in the same funeral pyre.

If this was the cost to conquer the northern ocean, he wondered, just how steep would the price of all Fenris be?


	39. 2-17: Valmar 5

The feast was a strange one, as hollow as the victory it celebrated.

He hadn't meant for this to happen. He hadn't meant for the cream of thirty-two tribes, among them his own, to be burned away in a futile battle.

He could have held Asaheim. Why, he could have held Asaheim alone. The fragile empire he led would have broken apart, of course, but the Sala-led coalition could never have stormed the cliffs. And -

And that was all that it had begun from, a desire to craft a haven for those who wanted a permanent home. For those who tired of wandering, for those who were weak in body but had other things to offer. But to prevent the cities from becoming bloodbaths from old feuds, he'd been forced onto the path of conquest. He had seen enough battles before.

But this had been the first _such_ battle.

So many open seats at the tables, Geri and Hral in ice-sleep, Gondr dead... His people toasted to him, with genuine pride - and, aye, it had been a great victory. The numbers were twenty tribes to twelve, but as to men, the enemy had three for each of theirs. Some of the enemy tribes, Valmar knew, would go extinct after this, perhaps even all twenty. Some seemed to rejoice at that possibility, but Valmar found only more sorrow in it. How many songs and dreams would be lost, with the Balaari and the Skas and, yes, even the Sala?

And yet if the feast was hollow, it was a feast still. Bulveye had a new maiden on his arm, as was his way, boasting of his deeds in the Isles. Leif was dancing, of all things. Ulbrandr was away, brewing more mjod.

And to either side of Valmar, Jorin and Hicond sat, and drank, and smiled despite it all, though on both of their faces Valmar could see the weight of regrets past.

"The good is, we fought as one," Jorin noted to him. "All twelve tribes, side-by-side like brothers. We have our unity."

"More or less," Valmar acknowledged.

"More," Hicond said. "I've taken an apprentice while you were away. Selsig. He is Es. And such things are not uncommon. We are creating something great, here in the north. If the rest of Fenris refuses to accept it, it is their loss."

Valmar nodded. "I could make weapons that would _make_ them accept it," he said, thoughtful. "Great ships of metal, war machines that shine so brightly they cause fires... The designs are there, in my mind."

"Then why have you not built them already?" Jorin asked.

Valmar had built some, of course. The blades of Asaheim never broke, after all. But -

"Because," Hicond said, "you did not want to kill the people you're trying to save. That was it, was it not?"

"Given five years, I could rain destruction on all Fenris," Valmar said. "Leave half the world a wasteland. But why? There would be neither good nor challenge in that." He looked up. "Jorin, what is that?"

A commotion, at the entrance. As it turned out, a stranger that none of the Asaheimar recognized had come in. "He is powerful," Leif whispered to Valmar. "I know that, even if I know nothing else about him."

"Hail, wanderer!" Valmar said. "Come, have bread and mead. What brings you to my hall, and how should we call you?" He did not ask how the man - if a man he truly was - had arrived in Asaheim.

The wanderer stepped forward, and suddenly he seemed to unfold. He was taller, clad in golden plate, a flaming sword sheathed at his belt. "I have many names," he said, "but in this age I am most often known as the Emperor. And I have come for you, my son."

Jorin snorted. Yet the figure's presence was such that Valmar was not sure it was a lie. Even Jorin, after all, had shrunk back at the traveler's pronouncement. "Where did you come from, then?" Valmar asked.

"From the stars."

There were murmurs at that. The stranger had all but claimed to be an Upplander, and with his strength that was all but a claim of divinity. And perhaps it was true, but -

"You ask for fealty, then," Valmar said, stepping forward.

The traveler gave a slight nod.

He was a powerful sorcerer, to be sure. Perhaps he even was Valmar's father. But it would not do to kneel for that alone. No, what was needed was -

Valmar met Jorin's gaze, and smiled.

"A challenge, then," he said.

The hall cheered. All save the extremely drunk Bulveye, that is. "Three challenges!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. "We demand three challenges!"

"Three challenges it is, then," the stranger said. "What shall they be?"

Valmar thought for a moment. "First," he said, "a contest of smithing. Then, a drinking contest. And last, a match of wits and blades - a hunt across Balerigonhofdi, where our prey is one another."

"So be it," the wanderer said, and so it was.

The smithing contest was held in the twin forges of Sahav, from the morning of the next day to the morning of the day following that. Valmar forged a great shield, one that was intricately decorated with images of beasts and battles, but that also held within it multiple devices for battle, including a generator that created a field to block projectiles within a foot of the shield, and an edge that was sharper than most blades and would never need to be whetted. It was among his finest works, despite the time constraint.

Yet the wanderer too had forged a thing of beauty. It was a hammer, but one not designed for war but for smith's work, and its half too was decorated with intricate designs, and it too held other secrets within itself. And when they emerged and presented their creations, it could not be decided who had won, and so the first contest was adjudged a tie.

Then the drinking contest came. Valmar knew in advance that speed alone would decide this contest; the stranger was, indeed, at least his equal, and so they would inevitably drink the cellars dry. So he sped through the barrels, as did the Emperor, and in the end when the drink ran out, Valmar had won by two goblets.

And with that, even as Valmar's people cheered his victory, they set off for Balerigonhofdi, for the final match, which no man or woman would be able to observe.

The lower shoulders of the crag were covered in broadleaf forest, which soon became a scramble of interwoven conifers and then a rocky scree to the crumbling summit. The day was a cloudy one, rain incipient. Valmar entered the southern side of the mountain, instructing Jorin to lead the stranger to the northern, both to enter at the moment of noon.

The wyrd of the traveler should have been easily detectable from miles away, but of course he would conceal himself. So Valmar tracked him, instead, in conventional fashion, at times inquiring with mastodons over whether they had seen another man here - for no warrior of Asaheim would have dared enter this wilderness now.

In the end, though, he realized he'd had no need for the delicate tracking. In the moss-covered upper woods, he saw a glimpse of movement near the loose rocks of the summit and realized the Emperor had cut straight to it. Perhaps the Emperor had seen him in the process, or perhaps not.

But at that very moment, thus distracted, he felt great fangs sink into his leg.

Valmar whirled around, smashing the head of the serpent with his hammer; yet the poison was in his veins. He stumbled to his knees. It would perhaps not kill him - he did not know what would kill him - but his head was clouded, and his motions sluggish, and an ice troll was now charging, sensing the scent of wounded prey -

And then its head was off its shoulders, in a shower of golden sparks and roiling flame.

The Emperor held Valmar upright as they returned to Thengirik. The poison was already clearing his system, the pain receding. He had lost the contest, of course. But, as Bulveye pointed out, the overall score was technically tied at one apiece.

It did not matter. For even apart from his life having been saved, Valmar understood, now, that the Emperor had spoken the truth.

Valmar had met his father.

And the new adventures that awaited would be among the stars.


	40. 2-18: Iacton 5

Iacton Qruze, now captain of the Luna Wolves' Third Company, frowned as he looked out at the surface of Fenris.

Well, that was an exaggeration. It wasn't as if he could actually see anything.

"We're moving downslope," he said. "No use standing around in the blizzard."

He could barely even hear his own words, so he switched to vox, which wasn't much better. Still, the Luna Wolves trudged down the mountain's slope, shouldering onwards through the ice in full power armor. Nominally, they were here for a ceremonial reception, a celebration of compliance.

Even if the people of Fenris really were compliant, though, Qruze wasn't sure the world itself could be classified as such.

"Very welcoming," Deremat said.

"We landed off-target; this predicament is out own fault," Qruze answered. Which raised another point - they'd have to get back here. If, of course, the gunship wasn't under ten meters of snow by that point. So perhaps the captain and sergeants of the Third Company would have to ride back up with Minos or some such.

"Hasever is not piloting again," Dontolar said, before a loud crash was heard from his vox, causing the Luna Wolves to turn around and search for the crevasse into which the sergeant had fallen. It had been a shallow one, thankfully, and so they got him out quickly. Hasever had some choice words about Dontolar's available room to insult others' skills, and Qruze was forced to remind them to argue back on the newly renamed _Tricraterion_.

So they went, for a time, across the treacherous footing, and Qruze almost thought the blizzard was failing when another crash came. He whirled around, a sigh on his lips, but it was not a crevasse this time.

Instead, Algrce was simply gone, and where he had been the head of a massive worm-like creature rose from the ice, concentric rows of teeth clicking.

"Attack!" Qruze yelled, and charged, power sword held forward.

Bolter fire pounded the beast, but it was inaccurate in the snowstorm, and some of the projectiles merely glanced off-target. Hasever's bolter exploded in his hands, fortunately leaving him uninjured. Qruze swung upwards as the wurm dove down at him, catching the instant of contact -

And its head lolled to the side, blood gushing from the deep wound. Qruze slashed again, blood pumping despite the cold, and within moments he had recovered Algrce's mangled body from the wurm's bisected esophagus.

"The gene-seed is not recoverable," Phaen confirmed.

"I'm carrying the body down regardless," Qruze said.

It was not actually too much further. The glacier ended in a great moraine, and below it the blizzard eased, revealing the city of - Fenrigik, was it? - at the juncture of two rivers. It was a few kilometers' walk, but they were Astartes, and no other animals attacked them.

That didn't lessen the weight of Algrce's body on Qruze's shoulders. They were all a great deal more solemn, now. It was a meaningless death, the sort that would be forgotten, the sort no Astarte wanted for themselves. Qruze understood that, just as much as he understood, also, that this sort of death was no less a part of their duty than any other type of death.

So they walked down the mountain, and in time came to the walls of the city. It was more of a castle, really, towering walls of stone and cement blistering with cannons and arrow slits and killboxes. Inevitably, Qruze's mind thought to how they would have taken this city, if it had come to war; the only means he could imagine succeeding was aerial assault, even with the technological gap. Well, that, or an outright siege.

As it was, they were greeted at the gates, and welcomed in. "Thengirik," a proud youth who introduced himself as Hjalmar told them.

The city wasn't huge, and mainly consisted of buildings only two stories high; but it did have a quaint sort of beauty, and as Baamar pointed out, it was very solidly built. Clean, too, unlike _some_ worlds that had degenerated to the steam era.

The central hall, though, was built in a much older style, a wooden palace. As they approached it, Hjalmar looked questioningly at Algrce's body.

"He deserves a funeral," Deremat said. "For the breakout at Milimoi, if nothing else."

"For two decades of service," Qruze softly said. "Milimoi was his brightest moment, but it is impossible to sum up a life only by its brightest moments."

They were interrupted by the Legion Master. "Ah," Minos said, "Third Company is finally here. And - "

"Our lander went off-target, Legion Master," Qruze said. "Sergeant Algrce was killed by a glacier serpent of some sort while we hiked down to here."

Minos sighed. "Half the landers went off-target," he admitted, "conditions were terrible. But I hoped we'd avoided casualties. Algrce... he led the breakout at Milimoi, didn't he?"

Qruze nodded.

"He will have a worthy funeral," said a new figure emerging from the palace. "And I deeply apologize for your loss. An ice wyrm, wasn't it? This was meant to be a day of celebration... but the mountains know nothing of such things as holidays."

He was massive, dark-faced, wearing leather armor fitted for his size. On his head he bore a bluish circlet of metal, a simple crown.

Iacton Qruze realized immediately that this was Valmar Russ, the second of the Primarchs to be found by the Imperium of Man.

But before he could kneel, a third figure emerged from the palace. Clad in golden armor, even now, with his radiance dimmed, the Emperor of Mankind seemed a figure of legend that had stepped out of a brighter age into mere reality.

"So only the Eighth Company is still missing," he said. "Rise, Captain Qruze. For now, let us feast to Fenris joining the Imperium; there will be time for mourning in the evening."

The mjod and ale helped Qruze forget the loss, for a time. He even saw Deremat and a few other Luna Wolves dancing with some of the serving girls, for all that the Astartes had no more than an aesthetic appreciation for them. The language barrier proved tricky to bridge, but music was universal. Qruze sang along, off-tune and well-aware of it, to an old Cthonian ballad, and the Fenrisians sang their own myths, and somehow there was camaraderie there despite everything.

And at sunset, Qruze lay Algrce out on a boat, and Captain Andae of the Eighth did likewise with the two sergeants he had lost in the long trek here, and as the ships sailed downriver, the Emperor of Mankind himself stretched out a hand and left them as three columns of flame.

They burned brightly. Qruze could not help but compare this to the forlorn spur where Algrce had actually breathed his last. The meaning of a death could not be truly seen from its moment, not even from the moment of the funeral. No, for as long as a life was remembered, its legacy would keep on transmuting. That was _why_ duty was what mattered, not glory.

And yet - there was something in this celebration, too, silly and barbaric and misplaced and overeager (for most of the planet's population remained unconquered) as it was. There was something in Fenris, in... well, in life.

Something Qruze had, despite what some said, not yet lost.


	41. 2-19: Valmar 6

Valmar studied the maps of the empire he was to be a general of aboard the Emperor's sky-barge, the _Bucephelus_.

"They are hardly complete," his father said.

"Why?"

"They are flat," the Emperor said. "The systems are all there, but only a three-dimensional projection can truly show their relation to one another."

"That seems... both godlike, and unwieldy."

"It is indeed unwieldy," the Emperor admitted. "Ergo the maps. But why godlike?"

It was, perhaps, a test. The Emperor never called himself a god, nor was he called a god by his Luna Wolves. That had not stopped many among the Fenrisians from proclaiming him the Allfather.

"The stars," he eventually said. "The Uppland. The sky is meant to be the abode of the gods, so the godhis say."

"And what do you think?"

Valmar shrugged. "You come from the stars, with the sorcerous might of a god. You are surrounded by greater warriors than Fenris has ever known, and by wonders such that even I could not replicate. I do not know whether to call you a god, Father. Yet it is certainly no surprise that some of the Asaheimar do so."

The Emperor nodded. "I am not a god," he said plainly. "Come. Let us walk."

They walked through one of the central arteries of the _Bucephelus_ , itself like a street in a settlement a hundred times Thengirik's size. Around them, the walls rose like buildings, with catwalks stretching up and up and up. People ran across those catwalks, and the cabling on the walls bucked and relaxed under their ministrations.

"The technological wonders," the Emperor said, pointing at this work, "are not done by my hand, not most of them. I am a scholar, true, but the bulk of the work to move the Imperium forward is done by ordinary men and women. Much of the Imperium's technological backbone stems from the archives of the Martian Mechanicum, which was once its own empire entirely. I suspect many of them will want to come to Fenris, to help... civilize it."

"Let them come to Asaheim," Valmar said, "if they come to help. Let them build up Thengirik and Torerik and Vulfik, and perhaps build new cities in the northern valleys. But I would not have the wilds be tamed entirely, deadly though they are."

The Emperor nodded thoughtfully. "As to the Luna Wolves," he said, "they are mighty warriors, true - as they must be, against the enemies they face. But they are only one of twenty Legions, as you are but one of my twenty sons, the Primarchs."

"Oh?" Valmar frowned. "Then the others landed on other worlds?" They certainly had not landed on Fenris.

"They did," the Emperor said. "One has been found - Faro, your brother. We will visit him, I think, after this. The Astartes, the Luna Wolves among them, are created of youths infused with the gene-seed of the Primarchs - they are, in a sense, your sons. Yours is the Eighteenth Legion, called the Dragon Warriors."

Valmar remembered - he had been number eighteen. Before even the wolves had found him, then, before coming to Fenris...

"Yet," Valmar said, "your mighty wyrd - that _is_ yours."

"It is," the Emperor admitted. "But that makes me powerful, not divine. This is the Imperial Truth, Valmar, the philosophy upon which the Imperium is founded: there are no gods. No spirits, no demons."

"There are beasts, at least," Valmar said after a pause. That the Emperor, himself a sorcerer of such power - but one, the godhis insisted, that was free of maleficarum - should believe there were no gods was telling in its own right. And yet Valmar could not quite dismiss the time he had heard whispers, out on the ice, or the godhis' own runes.

"There are many things that people call gods," the Emperor immediately said. "Many of them are foul xenos, which tyrannize humanity with this. Others are not even aware... but later, later."

The Imperium was vast. That much, Valmar learned quickly. Hundreds of worlds, each with its own ways and paths. But for all its vastness, it was not much older than Valmar's reign over Asaheim, and so the only thing binding it together over these interstellar distances was the will of the Emperor.

It was a strange country, but in a certain sense it was a spring of stability much like Asaheim on Fenris. That pattern, Valmar would have been a fool not to recognize. And so, if it was his purpose, he would go out and bring worlds into the Imperium, for his father and for their own sake.

But that did not mean he would wage vast wars of conquest on Fenris itself.

Instead, aided by the transport technologies of the Imperium, Valmar visited a hundred tribes as a single day swept across the face of Fenris. He spoke to the chieftains, and spoke of his father, and how little was really asked of them. The Emperor was as good as the Allfather, and it would be lunacy to stand against him; but Asaheim was an offering of a safe haven, nothing beyond that. He did not demand fealty, did not require an end to their petty conflicts. Instead, he offered friendship and an invitation to visit Thengirik, to those that wished to take it up.

It was peaceful and quick, and Valmar was proud of it. And even so -

Even so, though the Emperor did not comment on this method of gaining the 'compliance' of Fenris, in the back of his mind Valmar wondered whether his father truly considered it sufficient.


	42. 2-20: Faro 11

The news came through the newly established astropathic relay at Naica, which was a stroke of luck in itself, for the Naica station had only been completed days before. Finding the psykers to staff it had been a difficult task, as the intact gangs did not wish to surrender power of any sort. Faro made sure to note which gangs had stalled the least, to later reward them accordingly.

The message itself was brought to him directly by Ezekyle Keyshen. His equerry had grown more comfortable in his position, but his salute to Faro was still sharp. Keyshen was his friend, but both fully understood that discipline took precedence.

"Urgent news," he said without preamble. "The Emperor has found a second Primarch, and they are coming to Cthonia aboard the _Bucephelus_."

Faro's eyes widened.

He wasn't ready for this. He had, he supposed, thought he was. But to be no longer the only prince of the Imperium, but one of many -

"I see," he said, in an instant almost sending Keyshen away. But no, it was better not to be alone. He would not embarrass himself.

He had known this day would come, Faro reminded himself. He had even looked forward to it. He had known of his brothers since that first conversation with the Emperor. The years they had shared together since then were always but a preamble.

There were others. There had always been others.

But no matter. There was work to do, to suitably greet Faro's family. A hundred possibilities for what the newfound Primarch would be like swam through his head, some stewards, some diplomats, some generals, some barbarians. "Which one?" he asked, though he was unsure if the character of the Legion would truly inform that of the Primarch.

"The choir saw a dragon representing the new Primarch," Keyshen said.

Likely the Eighteenth, then. They had taken heavy losses in the Tempest Galleries, and were mostly used as a reserve force. Fierce fighters that did not know retreat, but distant ones from the other Legions. But that told him little about his brother's personality.

"We will need to prepare a suitable reception," Faro said.

Keyshen nodded. Insufficiently affected, Faro thought.

"A suitable reception," Faro emphasized, " _for the master of mankind_."

"Ah," Keyshen said, understanding the magnitude of the challenge. "The Plaza of Eagles will not be complete in time - they will arrive within days. So the Midian River, I suppose."

"Is it clean, now?"

"As blue as anything on Cthonia," Keyshen confirmed. "You should see it, my lord. It is truly magnificent, albeit the plazas are not enormous."

"We are greeting two people," Faro said, sinking into thought. "The Midian should be enough. If a thousand Custodes come, they can stay on the orbital anchor. Have a transport prepared, and ready to fly to the Midian as soon as the signal comes. I will call up an honor guard of fifty... no, five hundred Solar Heralds."

The preparations were, of course, for more than merely appearances. This was to be a festival, of course - the coming of the Emperor himself to Cthonia. It was a way to bring people together in celebration, and at that, a celebration of loyalty. The Hive governors would have to be informed, immediately. There was so much to prepare...

Cleanups still to complete, of course, but Cthonia was mostly organized enough now that those were all technical challenges above all. So Faro summoned the Hive governors and began doodling plans for the organization of the festivities without disrupting the fragile peace on a spare piece of paper.

And all the while, at the edge of his consciousness, he wondered to what extent he was throwing himself into his work to avoid other, deeper thoughts.


	43. 2-21: Valmar 7

Within his father's sanctum, Valmar studied the maps once more, this time not as a traveler but as a general.

He was to take command of his Legion, the Emperor had said, and lead it in a war of conquest. The question was, where? Valmar did not yet know the character of his warriors - from the Emperor's words they were stalwart and stubborn, but gossip was worth nothing compared to meeting these men in the flesh.

But for all that, he knew the greatest of the nearby threats to the Imperium, and so he decided it was best to lead an offensive against it. That was the law of it, sometimes - to challenge the strongest foe, so as to test oneself.

And, besides, it would be a war that would test him only as warrior, not diplomat. Valmar was unsure of whether he could bring a human empire into the Imperium peacefully, but to crush monsters like the orks were said to be would be more straightforward.

Thus, his choice made, Valmar made his way to the bridge.

The _Bucephelus_ was vast, but perpetually under construction, scaffolding stretching across many of the outer passageways. Valmar walked the more solid inner ones for now. Like metallic canyons and cliffs and caverns, the technical corridors snaked in intricate webs, some parts of which seemed not to have seen use since being built. The central arteries of the ship, however, were gilded and decorated, if somewhat erratically. The amount to which some of these passageways shone bothered Valmar a little - glory was earned by actions, not riches. Not that he could accuse the Emperor of lacking in deeds, or even of greed - from what he had heard, the decorations were nearly all gifts that the Emperor had to somehow accommodate.

The room from which the Emperor commanded his ship was located near the prow, and when the ship was in the void its screens rolled open to show space around it. Now, though, those windows were sealed shut before the miasma of the Warp. The Warp was, based on the tales about it, a realm of maleficarum that had to be traversed when traveling between stars; dangerous, but necessary, to delve.

"Valmar," the Emperor said, sensing his approach. "Come - we are transitioning into realspace at Cthonia."

"Already?" Valmar asked, surprised.

"Sometimes the tide of the Warp is against us," the Emperor said, "sometimes in favor."

Valmar nodded. "Regarding the Eighteenth Legion's next campaign," he said, "I believe I will endeavor to break the Wheel of Fire."

The Emperor nodded. "A grand campaign indeed. You will, of course, have the support you need for it," he said. "Perhaps I will send the Second alongside you... But regardless, that is a year or two away yet. You need time to take command of the Eighteenth and build up its strength."

"Yes," Valmar said, "but... two years, truly?"

"Ah," the Emperor said with a chuckle. "Terran years, not Fenrisian."

As he did so, the viewports around them rolled up, revealing the darkness of the void. Within it, a red star burned, and near it a small disk of white and gray that Valmar knew was Cthonia.

His brother's home world. Valmar knew little of Faro, save his name; he did not know what to expect. He had never had a true equal, and even now - the Emperor was a superior, not an equal. Would Faro be a friend, or a rival, or worse?

But in the maelstrom of emotion that these past weeks had been, such concerns did not especially touch Valmar. His brother would be as he was; it would be interesting to meet him, but if their tempers clashed they could wage their campaigns worlds apart.

They descended on a gunship, accompanied by five of the silent Custodes. The Cthonian attendants, meanwhile, seemed awed by the Empreror, even though all they voxed was seemingly standard landing instructions. They flew through clouds, some white but others gray with smoke.

When they broke through them, and Valmar got his first look at Cthonia itself, he found it was not as he had expected.

What had seemed like terrain was in truth a series of massive constructions. Some of them were dilapidated, halfway to being ruins. Others were intact - gargantuan factories and fortresses and, to their left, a large block of green buildings that Valmar belatedly realized was covered in plants, above which a great cyclone ominously hovered and spilled down rain.

It was all so grand, in a fashion very different from Fenris. On Valmar's homeworld humanity had barely touched the planet; on Cthonia it had changed every aspect of it, a world that was in a sense as artificial as the _Bucephelus_. Valmar wasn't sure whether he liked that.

Eventually, they came to the first bit of water Valmar had seen on Cthonia's surface, an artificial river flowing for perhaps ten kilometers between two massive building-mountains. Arising from caverns, and entering back into them. The plazas around were white, perhaps marble or something like it, arranged in detailed steps. On one of those ships, the gunship first hovered, and then softly set itself down.

The doors rolled open, and Valmar saw his brother for the first time.

Faro was white-haired, but somehow that made him look younger, not older. He wore ceremonial armor of purple and gold, with a feathered cape around his pauldrons. His violet eyes sparkled with energy, though Valmar thought he also saw a hint of frustration. Perhaps, admittedly, he had been projecting. He was capable of patience, but right now there was so much to be done.

"My emperor," Faro said, bowing. "And Valmar Russ, I presume?"

"Yes," Valmar said, acutely aware of his own appearance - hardly martial, though the robes he wore could serve as armor through their sheer thickness. "And you are Faro." Faro, of course, gave a slight nod.

"Cthonia welcomes you!" he said, before turning around to his people. Valmar, Faro, and the Emperor walked through a lengthy column of purple-armored Solar Heralds, each of them kneeling, and outside a great crowd had gathered, cheering at the procession's movement. The Custodes walked behind them, and behind their helms Valmar was sure they were glaring. Searching, no doubt, for would-be assassins in the crowd.

There were none. The Primarchs and their father walked between two waterfalls and into a large atrium. The Emperor nodded, at that. "I think," he said, "that I will retire to my chambers, Faro. I have plans to devise, and you deserve some time with your brothers." One of the Solar Heralds, wearing the livery of an important officer, quickly appeared to take the Emperor and the Custodes away.

The Primarchs were left alone.

"So," Faro said. "Tell me of your world."

"Fenris is... most unlike this," Valmar said, as they walked through yet another gallery of statues. "It is wild - too wild, perhaps. Mountains, seas, great beasts that hunt the human population. Except for Asaheim, the land is short-lived, soon sinking under the sea or being flooded by new lava flows. There were no cities there at all before I landed, and even now, Thengirik is nothing compared to this sprawl."

Faro nodded. "Though Cthonia was very different too," he said, "before I landed."

"Oh?"

And Faro talked, to him, of the ceaseless struggle that had filled Cthonia before his arrival, of the pollution and the collapses that killed as surely as the beasts and volcanoes of Fenris, if not as frequently. Even now, Faro explained, the great work to restore Cthonia was only beginning, and it would never be truly complete.

And as he spoke, Valmar found they were not so different after all. That despite the differences in surface appearance, too much civilization had much the same effect as too little. Faro would couch it in different terms, of course.

But they had both tried, in their own ways, to fix the worlds they had landed on; and that, Valmar could not help but respect.


	44. 2-22: Faro 12

Valmar did not fit any of Faro's preconceived scenarios about what his brother might be like. That, overall, was a good thing.

They sat now at an overlook above the Midian valley. A small region that sparkled, in a world still filled with grit. But it was something, a tangible mark of the progress Faro was making.

The table between them held glasses of wine, which some of the humans would sooner consider pitchers. And behind them, the palace stretched out. It was not the Legion fortress that was now under construction in the southern hemisphere - no, this building was purely of administrative and decorative purpose. A complex that seemed to be glass shards from a broken mirror, but that was far sturdier than it looked.

"You truly challenged him to a drinking contest?" Faro asked, laughing.

Valmar shrugged. "A challenge of skill," he said, "a challenge of body, and a challenge of wit."

Faro smiled. It was a ridiculous sort of thing to stake an empire on, barbaric to the extreme... and yet, interwoven with that barbarism, his brother was someone who brought his people _out_ of darkness.

They were unlike each other, in appearance - Valmar was dark-skinned, a grand beard curling around his lip, his untidy hair not quite reaching his shoulders - and also in character. Valmar was quiet and often serious, but when Faro touched a subject that the Fenrisian truly cared about, he refused absolutely to budge.

"Sensible," Faro admitted with a smile.

"It wasn't the contest that decided it, anyway," Valmar said. "He saved my life. Which... well, some part of me still feels like I should not have needed saving. It was my overconfidence, to go to Balerigonhofdi."

"He once saved my life as well," Faro admitted, and told Valmar of Reillis, of the Emperor shielding him with his body.

Valmar nodded, then paused, as if about to ask a truly weighty question. "Faro," he said, "do you ever have doubts, about the Crusade?"

"About what, exactly?" Faro asked, confused.

Valmar paused, clearly choosing his words carefully. "What you have done with Cthonia is grand, but... is it usually like that, on other conquered worlds?"

"Sometimes," Faro said, realizing what Valmar was asking. "That is the goal, to make worlds live again. War is merely the first step of what we are doing, and not the most important one. But sometimes, aye, an enemy empire must be broken. That..."

"Is necessary," Valmar said, completing the thought.

Faro nodded. "The old must sometimes be burned away, so that the new can be built."

"I meant to say," Valmar said, "that threats to the Imperium must be destroyed. That is clear enough. But that aside... people do not always appreciate their homes being burned away."

"They do not," Faro agreed. "But it is for their own good."

Valmar looked thoughtful. "Sometimes," he finally said. "Forgive me - I am still new to all this, to wars between the stars. But these are weighty decisions, that must be made."

They did not feel so weighty to Faro, and he reassured his brother that it would become easier. After, they talked about lighter things, technical questions rather than philosophical ones. Faro's plans were sweeping, but he knew already that Valmar was more a craftsman than he, capable of building from the bottom up rather than the top down. "For the people," he eventually said. "Beauty has its place, and a decorative purpose is still a purpose, but the design of a blade must be pragmatic first and foremost."

"You know blades better than me," Faro said.

Their father found them at this quiet discussion. They had talked into the deep of the night, watching the sun paint its overgrown sunset across the horizon, and only near morning did the Emperor come to them. He was pleased at their accord, and made that much evident; but after a time, as Keyshen gave Valmar a tour of Cthonia, where they would no doubt be surrounded by cheering throngs - as all that happened, the Emperor took Faro aside.

"He is but the first," the Emperor said. "Or the second, rather, but the first of your brothers you meet. There will be more."

"If they are like Valmar," Faro said, "I will be glad to."

"Not all of them will be like Valmar," the Emperor said. It went unsaid that Faro would have to learn to work with them regardless. As the first-found son, nothing less would be expected of him.

And then the Emperor said the true reason he wished to speak with Faro. "I need you on the Crusade," he said.

"Cthonia is not yet rebuilt," Faro protested.

"No," the Emperor acknowledged, "but that does not require the bulk of the Solar Heralds. Nor should it require you personally."

"I am not strictly necessary here," Faro said, "but the work will proceed much faster with me. Many of the gangs are kept in line by my person, and have not yet learned to be loyal to institutions. Cthonia will not collapse back into disorder without me, but the climb will become much harder. I will send most of the Solar Heralds, of course, but... you do not need me by your side to conquer worlds, either."

"I do not," the Emperor acknowledged. "But I do not have enough generals I can trust, and Valmar is not yet ready. And you do need combat experience."

"I do," Faro admitted. "But - already? It has only been two years, and I have hardly been idle. The work of rebuilding is if anything more important than that of conquest."

"But that of conquest must be completed first. The Crusade must not stall, not until it is complete." The Emperor's face softened, and he gripped Faro's shoulder. "You cannot imagine how happy I am to see you valuing peace so much. But I need you at war."

Faro wished he was not so reluctant to agree. If the Emperor said his skills were needed, then they were. But to leave Cthonia behind, his reason for coming here unfinished... that hurt.

Hurt much more, and much truer, than the jealousy he had felt before Valmar's arrival.

"Where to, then?" he asked.

"To the galactic southwest," the Emperor answered. "You will have command over the Luna Wolves and the Thirteenth as well, for this mission." The same Legions that had taken Luna, then. "Xenos are attacking the local human worlds, and you are to bring the humans into the Imperium while neutralizing the xenos."

Faro nodded. That said, 'xenos' was a vague term. "What sort of xenos?" he asked, seeking to find out what sort of war he would be waging.

"A kind the Crusade has not before met," the Emperor said. "They are known as the eldar."


	45. 2-23: Ulbrandr 2

Ulbrandr had heard plenty about the skill of the Martian Mechanicum before their arrival. Indeed, that much was obvious to anyone who looked at them. To build their bodies into something as much metal as flesh required, if nothing else, great skill.

He had heard plenty about their skill. He had heard less about their insufferable arrogance.

"You cannot build there," Hicond repeated again. "The tectonics would smash it anywhere but Asaheim."

"Soundings indicate - "

Ulbrandr spat. "Hey, adept. You know how old Firewood is?"

The adept turned. "We have not been there in person, to take samples."

"Right," Ulbrandr said. "Well, it's less than a year old. Asaheim's the only land on Fenris older than... how old is it, Hicond?"

"Older than fifty Fenrisian years," Hicond said.

The adept's mechatendrils twitched. "That is impossible. Parts of the seafloor are much older."

"You want to build an underwater palace," Ulbrandr said, "you can speak to the krakens."

The adept crackled, but acquiesced. "The construction would have to be on Asaheim, then. But I would speak to Valmar about this first."

"Yes," Hicond said diplomatically, "and so would we. Are we in agreement to wait until his return, then?"

The adept agreed, somewhat dejectedly to Ulbrandr's eyes.

That business done, Hicond ambled along the street across Thengirik, Ulbrandr trailing after him. With the Sky King gone, Hicond had assumed leadership of the Asaheimar in peace. As such, he merited a guard, and Jorin had assigned Ulbrandr to that duty.

It was none too onerous, but still Ulbrandr regularly looked up, to the sky.

This time, he saw something.

"Lander," he said, pointing the trail out to Hicond. Hicond squinted and nodded, muttering that he'd prefer to know ahead of time when guests were arriving. Over the months, and especially with Valmar and the Emperor gone, the Imperials had gone from a source of awe to a mundane annoyance.

Though, Ulbrandr corrected himself as he saw the shuttle descend, there was still awe to be found.

The shuttle plummeted so fast Ulbrandr thought it would crash, but instead it swooped into a landing position, its fire-spouts turning to allow the delicate landing. Its hull was well-armored, but scarred nevertheless. Ulbrandr and Hicond both recognized the implication of that immediately.

This was a craft of war.

The warriors that emerged from it were more than men. Gray-armored and massive, Ulbrandr took them for Luna Wolves. But before he could blurt that out, Hicond made the correct identification.

"Dragon Warriors," he said. "Be welcome to Fenris."

The lead warrior nodded. "Sergeant Venetor, at your service," he said. "Are you Governor Hicond?"

"I am Hicond." And Hicond held out his hand, which the giant clasped and shook. "This is Ulbrandr. Come, be welcome! We were not prepared for your coming, unfortunately, and King Valmar is away. But kin of his shall always be welcome in Valmar's hall."

The Dragon Warriors bemusedly looked between themselves, but followed Hicond. "You fought alongside the Primarch?" Venetor curiously asked.

"I'm no warrior," Hicond admitted. "Ulbrandr is of his einherjar. But I studied under King Valmar, yes."

"Studied - "

"Smithing."

The conversation flowed from there, all of them ignoring the gawking onlookers, Ulbrandr speaking of Valmar's martial feats and Hicond of the rest. "We had hoped..." Venetor did not complete his thought. "Regardless, we were in the area, and so we thought to fly to Fenris. Apothecary Taraon already spoke of beginning recruitment."

"For the Dragon Warriors?" Hicond asked. "Well, you will have no shortage of recruits. The entire einherjar, for one."

"You will not?" Ulbrandr asked.

"My place is here," Hicond said seriously. "I was not born to be a great warrior. No, my place is to help hold Asaheim together while the Sky King is gone, and sometimes to work in the smithy."

"You are too old anyhow," Venetor said.

Ulbrandr shrugged. "That won't stop me," he said, causing the procession to stop.

"It would be suicide for you to undergo the implantation process," Venetor seriously said. "It was designed for only males, age no more than fifteen, _maybe_ twenty Terran years."

Ulbrandr frowned. He had not truly considered this, that he - and Jorin, and Bulveye, and all the others - would be left behind on Fenris as Valmar journeyed into the stars. It was a sobering thought, truly. He found himself speechless with despair.

What sort of einherjar could they be, if Valmar was forced to leave them behind like that? What of all the battles they had shared? Hicond could remain if he wanted - as he had said, the smith had a place here. But Ulbrandr had never intended to do so.

Hicond came to the rescue, as it turned out. "Is it impossible?" he asked. "Or merely dangerous?"

"It has not been tried," Venetor admitted. "In principle, implantation could be attempted, I'm no Apothecary... but I'd wager ninety-nine of a hundred would die."

And Ulbrandr laughed.

"Save your money," he said. "We're made of sterner stuff than that. Half the einherjar will try, to follow our lord into his true purpose. And aye, some won't make it. But we've all faced hundred-to-one odds before."


	46. 2-24: Cassian 1

Cassian Vaughn, then still Legion Master of the Eighteenth, would never forget the moment he learned the news.

Admittedly, it was a dramatic moment. The war council aboard the _Klostzatz_ , led by Vaughn himself. The Dragon Warriors were scattered, much of their small number deployed piecemeal in support for weak points of the Crusade's advance. Squad by squad, the Legion's force - _his_ Legion's force - had been drained away.

But now, with an ork offensive that threatened to break through the Merret Corridor, the Dragon Warriors' core had been dispatched to beat back the orks and then advance along the corridor. The auxilia, that is to say the human forces of the Golden Meridian, were represented by General Moxorani-10, and the governor of Merret, Brobben Tackal, was also present. Vaughn was accompanied by his equerry Bosch Tebriaz and by the aged shipmaster of the Klostzatz, Paramas Almanatt.

"All we await," Moxorani-10 said, "is the news of their arrival at Tes."

"They're not going to do what you think," Tackal insisted. "They're stupid, and that makes them unpredictable."

Moxorani-10 sighed, rattling her chain of office in frustration. "If they bypass Tes, they will be undersupplied and we will simply fight them here immediately. There is nothing to do but wait either way."

"It shouldn't be long either way," Vaughn put in. "Almanatt, if the orks attacked us right now, how long would it take for the fleet to be battle-ready?"

"Minutes," Almanatt said. "I have already put us on high alert."

Vaughn nodded to Tackal. "As such, there is no reason for concern - "

Which was when the menial messenger ran in, breathing heavily. "My lord," he said without looking at anyone in particular, "urgent astropathic message. Highest importance."

They all leapt to their feet in a moment, Vaughn's muscles tensing. "Message from Tes?" Tebriaz asked. When he got no response, he walked closer to the messenger and asked again.

"Er, no, my lord," the human said. "From Terra."

Vaughn's mind whirled. Redeployment? Perhaps a greater xeno threat had emerged somewhere. Or perhaps they were getting the reinforcements they frankly required. It was unlike Vaughn to wish for that, but at the moment, for all his outward confidence, he was not entirely sure how the Eighteenth would hold the corridor.

"Well?" Tackal asked, leaning in. "What is it, then? We're all curious." He said it with a glint of apprehension, likely because he'd made the same calculations Vaughn had. Holding the corridor would be difficult with the Dragon Warriors here; without them it would be impossible.

The reply was too quiet to be audible, even to Vaughn.

"Speak up, Ren,"Almanatt said. The tension was palpable, Vaughn's hearts hammering in his chest.

"A second primarch has been found," Ren recited, loudly if hoarsely. "On the icy world of Fenris."

"Ah," Tackal said, leaning back. "Well, that concerns us little." Vaughn's heartbeat relaxed. Momentous news, but of no consequence to this campaign.

"Of curiosity," Moxorani-10 asked, "which one?"

"The - the eighteenth, my lord," Ren said.

The eighteenth.

The Eighteenth.

The Dragon Warriors'.

It would have been right, in a certain sense, for Vaughn to be with more of his brothers at that moment. But he would never forget it, all the same. The humans' eyes widened, Vaughn was paralyzed with the thrill, and Tebriaz, entirely uncharacteristically, jumped into the air and whooped.

"Yes!" he yelled. "Yes!" Then he turned to Vaughn. "Er - no offense, Legion Master."

Vaughn grinned. "None taken," he said.

A Primarch. _Their_ Primarch. Vaughn knew nothing of what he would be like, but if Faro was any guide - well, there was a reason the Third followed only the First in its martial feats. Of course, Faro often used auxiliary forces in large number for those victories, but then, the Dragon Warriors were used to that as well. And with the Solar Heralds no longer the only Legion led by a son of the Emperor, perhaps they would become a little less proud. (The Dragon Warriors interacted little with the other Legions, but Astartes gossiped enough that Vaughn was quite familiar with the Solar Heralds' superiority complex.)

It would also mean Vaughn would relinquish command. But that bothered him little. It was not, after all, for the sake of ambition that he led the Legion.

"We shall have to inform the fleet," Vaugh added. "Almanatt, give the orders." They knew almost nothing about their gene-father, but it wouldn't matter. Not this battle.

"Um," Tackal said. "While we are all happy for your Legion... does that mean you are leaving?"

"No," Vaughn said. Tackal's concern might be interpreted as selfish, but Vaughn saw genuine fear for the people he ruled, and moved to reassure the governor as best he could. "Our orders were to hold the Merret Corridor, and we will do so; of course we will not abandon its people to the orks. The victory comes first, and we will fight twice as hard as ever before, so as to be worthy of our Primarch. But afterwards, we will fly to Fenris, and we will meet our gene-father. And not even the Emperor himself will be able to keep us here then."


	47. 2-25: Bulveye 2

The implants were painful. Bulveye's body was nearly tearing itself apart with the pressure of the growing muscles and bones, and his mind was awash with variable violent instincts.

It was worse for those that were older. Jorin was powering on through sheer willpower; the Apothecaries said he should have died a dozen times, but then so had Valmar in Bloodhowl's youth. Others among the einherjar's older generation had accepted retirement, homes and families and the quiet that Asaheim sometimes bore - but Jorin had instead bid goodbye to all that, for the sake of war and the sake of Valmar.

Hicond received implants of his own, though they were designed exclusively for the purpose of keeping him alive, to be Valmar's castellan. They were changing, all of them, and being changed.

That was not really new, of course. The second heart that beat strangely within his chest, the ability to see the memories of beasts by eating their brain, the brightness of his blood - that was all new. So were the wild mood swings. Bulveye sometimes worried he would become a beast in truth, not in body but in mind. And pain, of course -

But he was becoming better. Stronger, tougher.

It was still a relief to stand - somewhat uncomfortably - before the newly constructed landing pad, away from the Apothecaries and their instruments, and watch Valmar of the Russ return to his people.

He emerged from the pod alone. He wore new armor, no doubt power armor of the Imperial pattern, as yet unpainted. His beard was slightly trimmed, though not by much. Besides that, he looked as mighty and as generous as the day he had departed.

"Rise," Valmar told them. They walked to the hall slowly. "I do rather wish you had waited until my return to start the implantations."

"They said the gene-seed was made from your blood," Jorin pointed out with a cough.

"Yes," Valmar said, "but I did not know."

Jorin frowned. "Would you have forbidden us?"

And Valmar's face softened, and he looked down. "No," he said, "but... you have cast yourself into peril for my sake. Without my even being here."

"It is a peril you could not share," Vuler said.

"No," Valmar acknowledged, "nor one I could aid with." He sighed. "So what else has happened?"

Bulveye waved a hand around. "The Mechanicum are building," he said. "They wished your advice on the construction of a spaceport."

"The Mechanicum can wait," Valmar said. "What of my people?"

Bulveye spoke, and Jorin and the others spoke too, of the marriages and the births and the ways the new technology was interacting with the was of Asaheim. More than ever, the distinction had become between highlander and lowlander - between the Asaheimar that lived in the great cities, and were learning Imperial technology at what the Mechanicum said was an astonishing pace, and the people of the seas that neither wished for nor were granted such gifts. "It is for the best," Valmar said of that. "If they must continue killing each other, best they do so with spears and axes, not bolters."

He had not yet been given official command of the Eighteenth Legion - the Emperor had given orders to finish inducting a new crop of recruits, that is, Bulveye's crop, before the Astartes began their first new campaign. Despite that, the Dragon Warriors deferred to him instinctively, because everyone knew he _would_ lead them, and soon. Valmar was curious, too, to meet a few of his sons.

"You have been guarding the Imperium, then," he said, "more than expanding it."

Sergeant Venetor frowned. "Those were the orders we were given, my lord," he said.

"No, it is all to the good," Valmar immediately answered. "A more valuable task, in many ways. So, then, tell me of the other Legions."

Venetor could offer little but gossip, though. The Dragon Warriors, it seemed, stayed apart from their Astarte brethren, in part precisely because they were more of a defensive force. The Luna Wolves, apparently, were on of the more dedicated Legions, while the Solar Heralds of Valmar's brother Faro were known as boastful, but not without reason.

"But now you are here," Venetor said. "No doubt we will surpass them, in time."

"It is not a contest," Valmar said. Then he smiled. "But yes, I think we will."

Bulveye nodded. "Now that you are here," he said, "there's no force in the galaxy that can stop us."

Venetor laughed. "No force indeed," he said, "Brother Bulveye." And he clasped Bulveye's hand in a grip that made Bulveye grin as well.

He felt the pain of that grin the next day, though, or more accurately of the drink that followed. And, mostly, the implant the day after that. It was called an obolitic kidney, or some such, and it was placed somewhat off-position in Bulveye's abdomen. The Apothecaries corrected their mistake within minutes, and by all rights that should have been that, but Bulveye still felt phantom pains, and then real ones.

Well, perhaps it was the kidney. Or perhaps it was a different implant, one of the earlier ones that his body had not reacted well to, or even his own drinking. It was easier for him to mentally blame the Apothecaries' error, but he knew that, really, he had always been too old. Not genuinely old - he was in his prime, in the main - but old enough that the organs had not set as they should have.

He was bedridden for weeks. When he awoke one day to relatively little pain, he looked outside to see new snow. "You have been asleep for a while," Valmar said.

"I feel better," Bulveye said.

But Valmar's face was creased. "It will pass," he said. "I'm sorry. Taraon has said there is nothing more to be done."

"How long?"

"Days," Valmar said. "I convinced them to let you have a clear mind and fit body for the moment, but within days the drugs keeping you hale will disintegrate. Most likely you will die on the spot."

Bulveye nodded. He did not feel like a dying man - though he supposed he did not know how that should feel. But his own journey to Morkai did not bother him overmuch, because in truth he had expected it. What worried him more was that he had been among the youngest.

"Did any of the others make it?" he asked.

"A dozen of the einherjar are still alive, and stable," Valmar said. "Jorin and Ulbrandr are among them."

"Leif?"

Valmar shook his head.

"It was still right to try this," Bulveye said, reaching upward and noticing that he could now reach Valmar's shoulder to put a hand on it. "If even one of us makes it, it will have been worth it. We must dare the impossible too, not only you."

Valmar looked at Bulveye, and wiped a tear from his eyes. "It shouldn't have been _you_ ," he said. "You were barely even too old..."

Bulveye shrugged. "I'd have preferred my thread be cut in battle," he said, "but it wasn't a bad life, all in all." He had been ready to die before; that this was inevitable didn't make it any worse, not really.

"For now," Valmar said, "one last hunt. There is a rabid great bear wandering near Vulfik. It's smashed through a great many of the fields, killed dozens."

Bulveye understood the gift immediately. His death was inevitable either way, but it could yet be a glorious one.

They reached there by aircraft. Only the two of them: the god and the dead man. But right now Bulveye felt more alive than he ever had.

The bear was not hard to track, given the swath of destruction it had left behind. It slammed through fences and walls and trees all as if without noticing. It had not yet charged the great walls of Vulfik, but it was only a matter of time.

Valmar shot at it from afar, but that only enraged it. It charged the hunters, and Bulveye charged it with his axe held high, and within moments he was tearing at it hand-to-hand. Valmar stormed in too, though the king was far more careful, keeping a distance from the bear as he pounded it with his hammer.

The wounds were scabbed over as soon as Bulveye received them, and he realized that he was, for the only time in his life, fighting as an Astarte. He fought only harder for his recognition. When his axe was broken by the building-sized beast, he spit acid at it from his mouth, and tore at its flesh with his gauntlets. From time to time, he felt the impact of Valmar's hammer upon the bear's flesh. The beast slowed, bit by bit, and eventually a gap opened enough sufficient for Bulveye to raise a trembling hand and tear out its throat.

The bear fell before him, and only now Bulveye saw how much red snow there was. Most of the blood was the bear's, but far from all.

Valmar rushed to him as he collapsed. "Were you bitten?" Bulveye mouthed. Valmar shook his head; there was not even a scratch on that beautiful armor.

Good. Very good. He had done his job and guarded his king, then, one last time.

Bulveye tried to open his mouth to say something else, but his throat was raw, or perhaps simply gone, and so he only smiled as he died, and looked west, at the snow-blanketed mountains of Asaheim and the Wolf's Eye setting above them, as red as life-blood.


	48. 2-26: Thrallas 5

Meben was the capital world of the Shedim Drifts, or as close to it as existed, and Thrallas wondered at first whether the expedition would ultimately classify it as a Garbage World.

This was not metaphorical. The oceans of Meben, and especially the land, were so full of refuse that the native humans had almost lost their sense of smell. It was one thing to be a Hive World, but Meben was something else entirely.

The locals, while not bothered by the fact that their very buildings were built from trash, were very much in a state of uproar even before the fleet's arrival, and accepted compliance nearly instantly, so long as they would be protected. To discuss what they needed protection from, exactly, Faro, Thrallas, Keyshen, and a small detail of Solar Heralds descended to the surface.

As they did, Thrallas wondered at the spectacle of the fleet hung above them, led by the massive flagship _Gloriana_ , first and only of its class, which Faro had been offered the opportunity to rename but chose not to. The Thirteenth and Sixteenth were not here yet - Legion Masters Vosotho and Minos were only days out, though, according to the astropaths. Coming after them would be the forces of the Mechanicum, among them four 'legions' of the war machines known as Titans. It was a massive demonstration of force, perhaps unnecessary - but only time would determine that, either way.

The Archate of Meben stood to greet them, upon a platform floating in the sea, composed of what seemed to be an abundance of aluminium cans molded into plates. "Come, come," he said, walking along a passageway paved with conglomerate of a plastic matrix.

If nothing else, the people of Meben were skilled at reusing their tools. The sheer variety of the 'pebbles' in the pavement attested to that.

Once the Archate was seated on his throne - which, for once, was welded of a single piece of metal, though it was clearly hollow inside - he sent all courtiers out of the room immediately. "The problem," he said, "is piracy. Meben has traditionally exchanged people and crafts for food. But at the moment, barely any ship can get in or our, across the Drifts. We cannot grow food on Meben, and so we starve. Other worlds have nothing but food, I assume."

"What do you know about these pirates?" Thrallas asked.

Not much was the answer. They were xenos, yes, from the tales of survivors humanoid ones, albeit faster and taller than humans. Tactically, however, they were almost entirely a mystery. They had come up the back end of the Drifts, gradually pillaging and then shutting down shipping entirely as their raids intensified.

"Why would they do so?" Faro asked. "They have ended their own source of plunder."

"They could merely lack foresight," Thrallas said.

"Perhaps," Faro said, looking around. "Perhaps. Options?"

"We need intelligence above all," Thrallas said thoughtfully.

"A merchant fleet with Astartes aboard the ships," Keyshen said. "Since I doubt that they'll attack the battlefleet."

Thrallas wracked his head for other ways to provoke the pirates, but could think of none more likely to work. The void was vast, and it was all too easy for ships to slip away in it. Without knowledge of where the pirates' base was - and even Faro could only sketch a fairly large circle for that - they had to resort to subterfuge.

"We'll have the full war council with Legion Masters Vosotho and Minos when they arrive," Faro said. "But be assured, Archate, that one way or another, we will cleanse this plague from your worlds." Of course, Meben's authority over even the lower Shedim Drifts was mostly fictitious even before the pirates, but it was at least a claim.

They returned to the _Gloriana_ , the twenty-kilometer ship's corridors still largely foreign to Thrallas. The ship had been received as the Solar Heralds left Cthonia, a gift from the Emperor and perhaps a sort of apology. This war would be its first, but the array of weaponry was such that even if half the guns malfunctioned, they could still have taken on half the Imperial fleet.

"Report," Faro said, to the news that everything was nominal but that a fleet was transiting out of the Warp at the Mandeville point.

It was a scattering of smaller ships at first, all seemingly Imperial, and then -

"What is that thing?!" the sensorium master exclaimed. "Fifteen kilometers long..."

"Sixteen, actually," Faro said with a smile. "That is the _Gloriana_ -class battleship _Harbinger of Doom_ , flasghip of the Luna Wolves."

"They built another one?!" Keyshen exclaimed.

Thrallas shared the sentiment. It, of course, did not match the _Gloriana_ 's size, despite the shared class. There was no insult in it, either. But the existence of a sister ship to the _Gloriana_ was news that he would have expected to know of.

"It was," Faro said, "admittedly somewhat of a secret project, and - well, I do enjoy surprising you, sometimes. The original plan was to build one ship for every Primarch as they were found, according to the Emperor. But the Mechanicum wished to lay two keels together, sister ships of a sort. The _Harbinger of Doom_ was a lower priority - I'm somewhat surprised it's already operational." He paused. "Admittedly it's smaller."

Welcoming hails with the Luna Wolves were exchanged, though nothing more at first. The _Sethaln's Thunder_ arrived ahead of schedule too, a Terran day later, and it was then that Legion Masters Vosotho and Minos, along with their respective honour guards, arrived on the _Gloriana_.

They were greeted in a grand procession. "Welcome, welcome, my friends!" Faro said, as they walked the Lunar Avenue, decorated with scenes from that first triumph of these three Legions. "But it is not to remember past glories that we are gathered here..."

"It will be a void war, then," Vosotho said after Faro's description of the situation. Then he grinned. "Which, I suppose, is why we have your two new flagships here."

"Perhaps," Minos said. "No reports of those pirates attacking planets?"

"Not invading" Thrallas said, "but there was a mention that several relay stations near Phoran might have down due to them." Perhaps the xenos would escalate, of course.

"It's a good plan," Minos said. "But I'd put a couple of warships in among the merchants."

"Ah," Faro said. "Yes, a screen. Or, if it works, even an early engagement."

"They'll know something is up," Vosotho said.

"They know that already," Faro answered. "I do not expect our arrival has gone unnoticed."

Thrallas jolted upright. "You expect they're monitoring this system? Remotely?" They hadn't seen any xeno emplacements in the Meben system, after all.

"They're just pirates," Vosotho pointed out. "We may be overestimating them."

Faro Aquilair sighed and shook his head, seeming to look out past the bulkheads into the distance of the void.

"They have brought a sector to its knees," he said, "while revealing next to nothing about themselves. No, Legion Master Vosotho, they are not just pirates. We are not on Luna anymore, and though I do not yet know how, this war will yet test us all - as war must."


	49. 2-27: Enoch 1

Enoch Rathvin, Legion Master of the Sixth, understood how great an honor he had been given with this assignment.

But by the same token, he understood how easy it would be to mess this up.

"Heads up!" he yelled. "Niv, stop drinking! Aliki, you moron, if you must wear a wolf pelt, properly preserve it first! We're going to be fighting alongside the Emperor himself, since you louts have apparently forgotten - let's not look like idiots while doing it!"

It was frustrating, having to rein in his warriors like that - let the consuls-opsequiari deal with that, he usually thought. But they needed to look presentable now. Rathvin was not deaf to the talk, in the upper echelons of the Great Crusade, of his Legion's troubles with discipline. They were not coldly ruthless, like the Eighth or Eleventh, but neither were they the driven brotherhoods of the Twelfth or Sixteenth. No, they were, supposedly, the Rout, combining the worst aspects of both. A problem, no matter their martial achievements.

Rathvin knew the Emperor did not listen to such talk, but he really needed not to give the master of mankind reason to find it justified.

The shuttle entered scant minutes later, gliding in onto the rail and comfortably slowing to a stop, despite one jitter that Rathvin was hard-pressed to explain but that he hoped he wasn't responsible for. A phalanx of Custodes marched out first, and behind them was the golden figure of the Emperor.

"Rise," he said, and Rathvin realized with some relief that he hadn't forgotten to kneel.

"Your Imperial majesty," Rathvin said, "I welcome you aboard the _Sixth Retribution_."

"Thank you, Legion Master," the Emperor said. "Now, should we proceed to the strategium? We have a mutual course to chart."

Rathvin was not entirely sure why the war council was being held here and not, say, on the _Bucephelus_ \- perhaps the flagship had suffered some sort of damage at Yvasarr. But the auxilia generals that were slowly flying in after the Emperor's shuttle conveyed clearly that it was. Among them, Rathvin was quite displeased to see the emblem of the Thamarine Nineties. Archcolonel Anthrall stopped upon exiting his ship and stared, hard, at Rathvin. Rathvin met his gaze.

"I have not forgiven you for Foroloti," Anthrall eventually said.

"Nor I you," Rathvin answered. "If you want to duel me about it, feel free."

Anthrall, of course, only scoffed and moved on. He was only human, and on past evidence a coward at that.

When they were all gathered, fortunately, there were no such conflicts. The Emperor's presence silenced strife of that sort. Still, of the twenty illustrious figures now gathered, only one - the Emperor himself - was not, for one reason or another, obviously uneasy.

"Our direction," he said, "is northwest. Iterator Minimle, what is known about this string of worlds?"

Minimle pursed her lips. "Not much," she admitted. "Many of the Rogue Traders operating in these parts have been tossed off-course by the Warp Storm, Cygnus X-1, here. It's one of the worst we've seen, with no discerned paths through the entire region."

"That's supposed to be a storm?" Rathvin asked. "If it's really that big, we should - hell, we should see it from Terra."

"Other storms are in the way," the Navigator, Porruk Belkrar, said. "Same as coreward of Terra. But Cygnus X-1 has also been very slow to dissipate."

That made sense, especially with lightspeed delays. You could see Warp Storms from Terra that had dissipated decades ago. Of course, you didn't stare at those rifts; it could drive a man mad, even an Astarte. Only the Navigators could truly see into the Warp.

"As such," Minimle continued, "we have to go around, to the west or east of it. The western route is less explored and narrower. Variable minor xenos. The eastern route has an abundance of orks, but also more human habitation. The Thirteenth were operating in that area before being recalled to the Shedim Drifts."

"Is the western route safe?" Anthrall asked. "Navigator Belkrar, are you confident you can get us through it without loss? It wouldn't do for us to lose the Emperor to a navigation error."

Belkrar smiled. "That is not an issue," he simply said. "Would not be even without the Emperor here. But surely the eastern route is more promising?"

That set off a long discussion. Rathvin held his peace during it. He was not opposed to testing the Legion's strength against orks, but following the thornier route had its appeal too. He let Xumaut speak to the Legion's capabilities when that became necessary. He didn't need to defend the Sixth's ability here - it would be proven soon enough.

Eventually the Emperor stood, and the room fell quiet. "We follow the western route," he said. "Specifically, the Quazzal Clusters, then along the Keit Wall, through the narrows and into the expanse thereafter."

"The area is almost entirely unexplored," Minimle noted.

"Precisely," the Emperor said.

Rathvin nodded in understanding. None of the scouted routes had looked like nearly enough of a challenge to justify the presence of the Emperor himself. This, however, could yet provide a suitable test and a suitable triumph for the First Expeditionary Fleet.

"Does any man or woman object?" Constantin Valdor asked. None did, of course.

And with that, the First Expeditionary Fleet prepared to set forth. The first few jumps were exploratory, but it proved easy enough to keep the ships together, the Navigators excitedly talking about how the Emperor served as a psychic beacon. And soon enough, they traveled to the first unknown planet in the wild, untamed First Quazzal Cluster.

It was a pleasant, massive sphere of blue. At first it seemed an ocean world, perhaps even an ice giant, but it was not so. Between the vast oceans, specks of land, some even large enough to be small continents, emerged. Specks of green.

Specks of green marked with the colors of farms, roads, and cities.

The Great Crusade had found the world of Avalon, and with it, the third of the Primarchs.


	50. 2-28: Ri 1

The boy came to awareness while walking along a low line of hills.

He remembered earlier things, distantly - the pod, the crash landing, the short swim to shore. But this moment, on the summit of one grassy hump, one of whose sides fell off in a rocky cliff to the waves - this moment would be one that he would later recall was the first time he remembered his thoughts.

He walked on, walked forward, angling away from the coast, towards the only tree he could see, which was on the summit of the tallest crag around. It was half-dry, but vast, roots reaching down through the rocks and seeming to permeate the whole region.

When he was perhaps halfway to that crag, he saw the party of people walking towards him, wearing robes of white and green. Each carried a staff, the most decorated being that of the white-haired woman who led them, whose robes alone of them all were a vivid blue. The procession had the air of a ritual, but the men and women spoke softly among themselves without concern for ceremony, though they were too far for the boy to hear their words.

They quieted as they approached, and the leader of the procession knelt down to face him.

"We greet you, child," she said. "How did you come to Taba?"

"I do not remember," he answered, which caused some muttering among the robed men.

The woman only nodded. "Have you been named?"

"I... have not," the child admitted. "I think I may have a name, but I do not know what it is."

The woman nodded. "Then," she said, "I give you the rise-name Ri, which in the Yellow Tongue meant to arrive; and you shall take your path-name when you come of age."

That caused more mutters. "Melgiana," one of the men wearing white robes said, stepping forward, "did you not say his name was to be Tlugh?"

"Another's name was to be Tlugh," Melgiana said, standing back up. "The boy Alaca spoke of was to have hair of dark brown, while Ri has light hair." The newly named Ri brushed a strand of hair over his eyes to confirm this.

"Prophets can be imprecise," the man said.

"Yes, Utamun," Melgiana said, "but usually that means they are wrong. This boy is not Tlugh; I can feel it. His path is a different one."

Ri coughed. "What are you going to do with me?" he asked, recognizing that he was not the one that Melgiana had been searching for.

"Come," Melgiana said. "Follow us to the top of Taba Hill, for things of such import must be spoken of in places of import. But fear not. You are in the company of druids, and we will not act unjustly."

Ri was only somewhat comforted by that, but he followed Melgiana and the druids nonetheless. There seemed to be a great uncertainty in the air. Ri found he did not like it. The path ahead should be more certain than that, even if it was difficult.

They walked up the shallower slope of the crag, though in the end they still had to clamber over roots. When they reached its top, in the shadow of the great tree's patchy crown, Ri found he could at last look out on the land below him in its entirety. For, he now saw, they were on an island, and not a large one. To the east, across a strait, a larger landmass stretched to the horizon, which inland slowly rose to densely wooded hills, in places dotted with what seemed to be villages and wooden keeps.

"That," Utamun pointed out, "is Ysc. The first land of humanity, and the only land in which it survived the Days of Violet Sky. The center of the world, the domain of the greatest knights and shipwrights and druids."

"Can he even understand you?" one of the other druids asked.

"I can," Ri said. "You surely knew that, since I did respond earlier."

"Ri," Melgiana said. "Alaca of the Silver Bloom spoke of a boy that we would find on Taba, a boy that would reshape the stars themselves. You are not the boy she spoke of, but your greatness is just as certain. The portents are clear enough on that. So I offer you a choice. You may stay here with us, and learn the way of the druids until you come of age, so that you are better-prepared to meet that destiny. Or, if you choose, I will find a family that will take you in and raise you, with kindness that we cannot show."

"I will stay, of course," Ri said. He could not imagine why anyone would not.

The sun set slowly in the western sea. By the time twilight engulfed them, they were laying in tents on the shore of Ysc. One by one, the sky revealed points of light.

"A clear night," Utamun muttered. "It really is an omen."

One by one, too, the druids went to sleep. Ri remained, looking up at the stars for the first time in his life. Patterns of light, split in half by the great stripe of light that was called the Road of Heroes -

And, as a sparse web around them, places it was painful to look.

"Rifts," Melgiana explained to him. "There are fewer with each generation, but some remain. They are malevolence written in the stars, and it is ill to look at them overlong. Focus on the stars, instead."

And Ri clenched his fists. He was not angry, not exactly. But if he were to reshape the sky, as was prophesied, then he would cleanse those blights from it, every last one.

For - what could it mean, that the sky above them was tainted?

And - tainted by what?


	51. 2-29: Melgiana 1

Ri was what every parent would wish for in a child - brilliant, dedicated, honest, and above all quiet.

The mystery around his origins did not reveal itself. And so Archdruid Melgiana chose to take him along with her on her wanderings, as she could not neglect her duties. She did not treat him as her son, but closer to an apprentice, of whom she had previously taught five; and despite his youth Ri proved as quick of mind as any of them, which caused Melgiana to rejoice. Ri had chosen learning over love, and she would not refuse the boy that.

For a time they walked the roads of western Ysc, treading northwards as the spring spread. They lived off the land for most of the time, and off gifts of villagers that Melgiana sang ballads to and resolved the conflicts of. They were welcome, too, in the keeps of the great chiefs, both out of fearful respect and from genuine friendship.

"Our duties as judges," Melgiana spoke as she and Ri walked up the slope of the Trihorn, Melgiana leaning on her trihelical staff, "are the most common. That does not mean they are the most important to us; but to the people we advise, our words can change a life, and so we do well to be aware of their import."

Ri said nothing. That was good, sometimes, but at the moment Melgiana wished to know his thoughts, which so often were buried beneath a stoic mask. When she asked him, he paused before answering. "What could be more important?"

"The lore we keep," Melgiana said, "the philosophies we debate - those are older than any single human, older even than any of the tribes. So our duty to history is no less important than our duty to the people living today. And we have, also, a duty to all Avalon, to prevent the return of the Violet Sky, when the rifts blocked out the stars and men fell to the earth. For men lacked wisdom, in those days, and they despoiled the world; and so crops failed and rivers ran dry, and only on Ysc did the druids preserve anything of what had been."

"Did men cause the rifts, too?" Ri asked.

"That knowledge is lost," Melgiana said. It was a point of curiosity that Ri often demonstrated, as many children did, the very origins of all that was known. But the ballads said little of those days.

Ri accepted this as well, as was his way. He did not lack curiosity, but he understood, in that way that even few adults who were not druids did, that knowledge had limits, and that time erased all things. Some, upon understanding that, accepted it to drift among the eons; others stood defiant against the tide of years, and sought to build something that would last. Melgiana was of the first school, but Ri seemed nearer the second, as perhaps was fated.

At the pass, they were greeted by a pair of riders, who dismounted and bent low before her in recognition of her staff. They took so long to state their business that Melgiana rapped her staff on the ground. "What is it?" she asked.

"King Uruth welcomes you to his lands, Archdruid," one of them finally said, "and asks you to ride swiftly, for he needs assistance with a matter of dispute between his two greatest knights - "

"I do not ride," Melgiana said. "Of course I will aid King Uruth when I come to his keep, but that will be near a week from now."

The riders shared a look. "Can you not step to his castle in an instant?" one of them asked.

"Magic is not to be used lightly," Melgiana said. "If the knights are so impatient, let them come to Aorit and hear my judgment there."

That settled it, but when they left Ri's eyes were ever so slightly wider than normal, and he asked Melgiana to tell him of magic.

What was strangest was that she considered it. She did not think she ever would, not to one so young, but Ri had the talent, and more importantly, the temperament. The greatest risk of magic was of losing oneself to it, due to either carelessness or ambition; indeed, training it was more than anything training to constrain one's inner power, not to summon it. The greater the working, the more risk there was in it, the greater the cost to the world. All those were things that children rarely understood, but Ri, surely...

But no matter how quickly Ri grew, in both body and mind, in the end he was still too young, and she said so.

"I am not asking to be taught magic," he said in reply. "I am not sure I will ever want that. But surely, it does not hurt to know _about_ it?"

"If only that were so," Melgiana said. The truth was, the line between knowledge of magic and knowledge about magic was a thin one, and in many places nonexistent.

They arrived at Aorit the next day, and indeed Uruth had sent word of his coming, the next afternoon. He greeted Melgiana warmly, and Melgiana did the same, remembering their friendship in years long past, when she had been an advisor to the then-young king's court.

The dispute itself, alas, was only about love, and silly at that. Raango and Gwyngat were arguing about the hand of a woman who had died a year earlier. It was, apparently, a matter of honor, a matter for which they had almost dragged the entire realm of Ritanspur into civil war. But they were willing enough to listen to Melgiana's urging to settle the matter with a mounted duel.

"Uruth," she said when the king objected, "I don't care how strong they are, it's better you be rid of one of them. Frankly, it's better you be rid of both. They're fools, and it is ill to have a fool sitting at a king's right hand."

Ri found the whole matter stupid, and unlike Melgiana, said so openly. What was more, he spoke about it with such conviction that the crowd around the jousting fields jeered the contenders more than anything. Gwyngat seemed to not care, but Raango was outraged, and Raango's moa, a large black-feathered beast, was provoked by that outrage.

It happened on the third pass, when Gwyngat's orange moa was already bleeding from several wounds, though the knight himself was unharmed. Raango's moa simply lowered its neck and went berserk, rushing into the crowd, indeed directly at Melgiana. Raango tried to stop it, but in the process his foot slipped in the stirrup.

Melgiana acted quickly, leaping up and leveling her staff. The moa ran into the bar, and despite its great mass, she stopped it in an instant, calling on her power to arrest its momentum. Raango was stopped as well, quickly falling off his mount, but he rolled over, picked up his blade, and ran back at Gwyngat. He almost won, too, but in the end Gwyngat's cold disdain carried the day.

The moa, for its part, raged for a few minutes, but then went off to devour some shrubbery. Sometimes, Melgiana was forced to conclude, animals were smarter than humans.

"It was pointless," Ri said afterwards.

"Yes, Ri," Melgiana noted, "you've pointed that out a dozen times already."

Ri took it as a reprimand and lowered his head. "The duel was good, though," he said. "The knights fought well. I'd like to..."

"Is that what you want to become, then?" Melgiana asked. "A knight?"

"I don't know," Ri admitted. "I was born for a great destiny, but I still do not know what it was."


	52. 2-30: Ri 2

Melgiana spent another half-year as advisor to Uruth's court, but she departed after that. "It wouldn't be fair," she explained, "for the archdruid to spend all her time attending to only one kingdom."

So, instead, they sailed down the Wide River, whose branching basin drained half of all Ysc, leaving Uruth's court to other druids that, perhaps, would be listened to by men less stubborn than Raango. (When he said that, Melgiana laughed and pointed out his own stubbornness. But he felt there was a difference in being stubborn in his beliefs and refusing to accept judgment.)

After sailing downriver, they passed for a time through the Atur and Nurinor archipelagos, but in time they once more turned north, to Taba, where the conclaves of the druids gathered every time winter ended. There were other conclaves, in the southern rainforests and in the snows of the north alike, in lands too distant to easily reach Taba. But Taba had been the first, and it was the greatest in number, and so it was the one the archdruid most often attended. After, they sailed for a year north, between the trees of Mara Peninsula that were as tall as fifty stories, across the long and islandless Sep Passage, and between the spider-filled isles of the Huriat Archipelago, where the sun only rose once a year, but stayed up for half of it. There, they heard tales of new islands being discovered to the other side of Huriat, the Grand Work of mapping all Avalon stepping slowly towards completion. And then they sailed back for a year, following different coasts with similar terrain, until at last they came to Taba again on the third year after Ri's finding.

All this time, Melgiana taught him about plants and animals, seas and isles, kings and wars, and the basic foundations of a hundred different crafts, so that disputes between them could be judged. She taught him also the lore of the ancients, the sciences of the heavens' design and that of Avalon itself. She spoke of other worlds, all of whose seas mankind had once sailed, and of the great works of stone and steel of which some still stood as ruins. Many of these things were half-secret, but she did not reveal the true secrets of the druids, which were those of magic and of religion; and Ri did not ask, for he remembered what Melgiana had said that first year. But even so, she taught him more than perhaps she should have, for Ri came to understand that she enjoyed teaching too much not to.

When they returned to Taba, it was in full bloom, the hills and valleys, which now looked childlike to Ri (then again, he had grown to far greater height and strength than a normal man could) covered in a rainbow of flowers, some with pollinating flies buzzing around them and others with slab-bugs. There was a certain commotion on the western, seaward shore of the isle, which revealed itself to be because a capsule had washed ashore; and Ri recognized it instantly.

"This is what I came from," he said.

He described it all, the little of it that he could remember. As he did so, he traced its surface, uncorroded despite spending three years underwater. The numeral VII was distinctly marked on its surface - did that mean that there had been six others like him, sometime before?

"There is little we can glean from it," Anaka, a Yscan druid who already wore the green robes of a master despite her youth, said. "Perhaps it should remain as a memorial?"

Melgiana shook her head. "You know my opinion of memorials. Bad enough that half the kings in Avalon try to litter the countryside with them... Regardless, it is Ri's to do with as he wills."

Ri asked for time to consider. In truth, though he did not wish to merely discard the capsule, he was not sure how much use there could be in it. A piece for a roof of some building, perhaps. It could as well be put to use, indestructible as it seemingly was.

Later that night, though, Melgiana took him aside. Wangar, an envoy of King Uruth, was there, on the camp by Ysc's shore - for Taba was forbidden during the holy nights - and it was he that wished to speak to Ri.

"Melgiana has said you will be counted a man tomorrow," Wangar said without preamble. "With that, your life is yours to do with as you will."

That was news to Ri, though now he realized Melgiana had hinted at it several times over the past few weeks.

"For a man of your talents," Wangar continued, "there will always be a place at King Uruth's court. As a knight, perhaps, though I imagine you do not need a moa, or as a captain in the fleet. Or as a craftsman, if you prefer; I imagine you could learn any trade within a year anyhow, if half the tales that are told are true."

Melgiana nodded. "Ri," she said, "King Uruth is a good man, and that is rare for a king. Tomorrow you will be a man, but whatever path you choose - well, many paths lead through Ritanspur." She laid a hand on his shoulder.

Ri paused. He knew the essence of what he must do. He had a duty - a duty to all Avalon, perhaps to realms beyond Avalon. He could serve Uruth, for Uruth was a worthy ruler -

But Uruth was, nevertheless, only one ruler of many. And his people were only one tribe of many.

"I thank you for the offer," Ri said. "And perhaps one day I will be at Uruth's court. But, if Melgiana approves it, I would become a druid."

Wangar took it in good grace, perhaps because he had expected it.

The next day was a stormy one. Under the drenching rain, Ri sailed alone from Taba to the islet of Tamanch, and there cut a lock of his hair and a _mear_ flower and threw both into the sea, to represent the passing of youth. There were many different ceremonies among the many different peoples, of course, but Ri had chosen to imitate that of the Whach that Melgiana had once come from. In the end, despite what she had said when taking him in, they did have a familial bond of love and loyalty both.

With the leaves floating away on the swells, he walked up to Mataarth. "Ri of Taba," he said, "do you wish to join the All-Circle?"

"Yes," Ri replied.

"Why would you step among our ranks?"

"To protect Avalon and its people," Ri answered, "from time and from each other."

Mataarth exchanged a few words with the four other druids in his council - mere formalities, of course, for the decision of whether to accept him had been made hours ago. "Then welcome to the All-Circle," he said, "Initiate Ri. What is your path?"

His path-name, which as always was his alone to choose and his alone to follow. "Domaan," he said. It was a meaningful word in two of the ancient languages - 'land' in the Mirrortongue, but in the more obscure Apowa, it referred to stewardship or protection.

Thus did Ri Domaan join the All-Circle of Avalon, and there, no matter what distant powers would in later days say, was the true beginning of his tale.


	53. 2-31: Melgiana 2

Melgiana Pilair had not expected to continue teaching Ri; she arranged for Mataarth to take command of the young man's induction into the All-Circle, and his education thereafter.

There was only one problem with that, and it was Ri's genius. Mataarth was not used to having a student faster to insight than himself, and soon threw up his hands and said he had nothing to teach Ri. That was of course false, for not all teaching was of facts; but Mataarth had been too exasperated to think rationally, at that point.

And that was how she found herself sitting in the Mai Grove, opposite her oversized pupil, and speaking about the fundamentals of magic.

"It is a gift," she said. "Some have more of it, some less; some are more talented with spells of fire, others with foresight, others still with names. Most humans can never learn a meaningful amount of magic at all, though regrettably the darkest arts are also the easiest to teach."

"And myself?" Ri asked.

"That," Melgiana said, "is a complicated question." Ri was certainly powerful, but powerful in a different way than usual, as if he was taking a different route. That also meant that he did not spontaneously manifest his power, and she was not entirely sure how it could be accessed.

When she explained that, Ri frowned. "Might it not be best, then," he said, "to leave it buried? There has been plenty said of the dangers of magic. I am not afraid, but that does not mean I wish to needlessly cast myself and all around me into fire."

Melgiana sighed as she tried to explain. Because it was a complex matter, really. Any mage that was not a fool used their magic only at moments of true need, because of the danger. Yet magic was also wondrous, a gift that should not be denied, and one that could turn poisonous if it was. And then, there was Avalon, and as much as overuse of magic hurt it, the land too had an aspect of magic. It was a paradox - magic needed to be used rarely, but that did not mean it needed to not be used.

As usual, Ri was a good listener. For all his ambition - 'Domaan' could refer to lordship, sometimes, and though Ri's goals were by any account noble she sometimes worried about that side of her student - he did not overestimate his abilities. He did not underestimate them either, though, which on occasion led to accusations of arrogance.

No one who spent time with Ri could believe that. He lived in a realm beyond any legend.

Regardless, that part of his magic that Ri could most easily access was of the land. That was a good sign, at least. It was preternatural awareness of what surrounded him, especially underground. There was, also, some ability to manipulate the ground on which Ri stepped, for instance in the swamps to regain sure footing where none existed. But all of this was almost subconscious, so closely tied to Ri's being that he had a difficult time consciously activating his power.

And for that reason, eventually, Melgiana chose to take Ri into the astral.

It was the kind of journey that should never be undertaken without supervision, and so there were mage-druids ready to pull them back, and knights ready to use their blades if what was pulled back was not them. Megliana chanted to center herself and Ri both, and when the time came, they loosened their grip on their bodies and looked at the world around them in a new light, one fully of concepts rather than reality.

"It is strange," Ri said. "Beautiful, but... strange." And then he looked up to the sky, and back down before Melgiana could react.

"Oh," he said, or rather sent - for speech was not a perfect metaphor for how they now were communicating.

For the sky above, full of rifts, was the domain of horrors - of the Enemy, some said, the antithesis to all that Avalon was. It was because of this, perhaps, that the druids, even those who were not mages, looked ever downwards upon Avalon, for it was protected from this darkness.

"And I came from there," Ri sent.

Melgiana understood at once Ri's concern, and moved to reassure him. The prophecies had said many things, but none of them -

But then, the prophecies had been wrong.

Ri was next to despair. Melgiana indicated that they should return, but Ri did not do so. He had to find an answer, and so he looked up again to the sky, his gaze dodging between rifts, Melgiana pulled along in his wake, and the archdruid began to wonder at what would come if they were to be lost here -

And then she felt the beacon. Golden light, or as close to it as was possible in conceptual terms. It was not a gentle light, nor a kind one, but it was resolute and defiant, a wall with spears of rays between shields of blindness.

And Ri, once again, understood something, and then they were themselves again.

He listened to Melgiana's pleas to never do such a thing again; it had been unlike him, to take such risks. But apologetic as Ri was, he knew, as well as Melgiana knew, that this time the risk had paid off, and in more than the magic he had awoken, that he could now perceive even without journeying.

"I still do not know," he said afterwards, "if I came from the beacon or from the rifts. But I felt a kinship with the light, so at least I do not think I am entirely of the darkness; and that must be enough, for now."

And as to Melgiana, for her best efforts at comfort and at warning, she could not help but smile in wonder at their discovery. Because that light had not arisen of its own accord.

Because she now knew Avalon was not alone.


	54. 2-32: Ri 3

A single careless act, born of spite or desperation, could shape the way of the world for eons. The Etam Cycle and the Song of Kul attested to as much. Ri had known this for a long time, but it was not until his own mistake had nearly doomed him and Melgiana both (and how many others?) that he truly came to appreciate it.

Then, he resolved never again to act incautiously; for he could tell, already, that his way was not to make small mistakes but great ones, and even a single such error in his lifetime would be too much.

He completed his training quickly, though perhaps not as quickly as he could have. He studied his magic as well. His affinity was with stone, above all; he learned how to shape it like clay on a vast scale, or fade into it, or give its strength to other things. Primarily, though, he learned control. For any mage with a modicum of wisdom never used a single spell more, or a single mote of power more, than was necessary.

He proved as skilled at magic as he was at anything else, and yet that moment of doubt before the hostile sky did not leave him. His destiny was great, but would it be for good or ill?

Yet he remained pragmatic. If he could not make his own destiny, then he would meet it head-on; and if he could, then he would do so regardless of his origins.

He had a duty to all Avalon. A formal one, soon, once he gained the white robes of a full druid. And on the night before that ceremony, when he held vigil in the grove of Hangalria, he finally confronted that part of his plans that he had been unsure about. As a druid, he was sworn to serve Avalon; yet he knew the All-Circle could do far more in that pursuit. As Ri Domaan, he wished to build something that would last forever, to defy time itself; yet Melgiana held that anything that was built could be broken down, and the ruins were testament to her words. Kingdoms fell, castles were abandoned, monuments crumbled -

But the druids had endured. And so did Avalon, and humanity upon it. And what was already strong could be made stronger still.

It was with all of that in mind that Ri set off on his own wanderings. He spent time at the courts of great kings, and also in humble villages, gaining a reputation quickly for being just even when other druids would have bent to the will of the mighty. But his presence was such that the mighty, overawed, acknowledged their error and accepted Ri's judgment. As to the legends, Ri was not so good a storyteller as Mauru Windharp, but he conveyed well - better, perhaps, than anyone save Mauru - the grandeur and tragedy of the past, glorious and ominous both.

It was so for two years; but at the end of this time, in the southern archipelago of Cuaika, for the first time there would come a time when Ri's judgment was not accepted, and when his ire was truly raised.

Ri learned of Redan the Bloody upon his arrival to the largest land of the archipelago, Taiar, whose spindly shores were all covered in rainforest. Redan was a king with the ambition to rule Taiar, but without a particular concern for ruling it well. Nonetheless, the plunder he gathered drew as many knights to him as his brutality lost, and he was a brilliant tactician, to an extent that even Ri could appreciate. At the time Ri arrived, Redan was preparing to make war on the small city-state of Botuail, in a war everyone in the archipelago cursed but none were prepared to intervene in.

When the canoe Ri was sailing on, which was named _Third Shark_ , sailed into the harbor of Taiarnial's harbor, he saw the commotion immediately, and soon learned what it was about. "It must be stopped, then," he said. "Redan's quarrel with Botuail can be resolved in a way that does not leave the city destroyed."

"You expect Redan to stop for you?" asked Deheran Moment, the captain with which Ri was discussing the news.

"Perhaps not," Ri said, "but he should at least slow down."

And so Ri came to Botuail, even as so many were leaving it, mothers and children especially but also men who would rather live as cowards than die as heroes. Ri tried not to judge them for this, even inside his mind.

The king of Botuail, an old man named Lohab, was glad for Ri's offer to mediate; but the druid of his court, Mainara, was not. "Redan will kill you," Mainara said. "He does not wish Botuail intact, not really. Even if he did, the knights at his side would revolt for lack of plunder."

"It is late not to try," Ri said, and Mainara accepted that.

So Ri sailed upriver to meet Redan's army, and though it was composed in large part of bandits, they all parted before him, recognizing the power of a druid. But Redan, when Ri requested an audience, merely laughed at the druid.

"I will not stop," he said. "And your writ cannot stop me."

"There are codes, for what to do when a dispute cannot be settled by words and gold," Ri answered. "A contest of champions."

Now, Redan's army had in it knights that no one in Botuail had a substantial chance of matching. In a single duel, of course, luck always played its hand; but the contest would be of thirteen champions on each side, and so there was no doubt that Botuail would surrender under such terms. But still Redan would not accept Ri's offer, as Ri suspected he would not, and laughed at it. "Mayhaps the druids of yore could have enforced such an ultimatum," Redan said, "but today, you should stick to disputes between shepherds."

Ri left the camp silently; yet before he did, he glared at Redan, his eyes burning with golden mage-light, and all in the camp understood at once that a great rage had been awoken.

Ri did not show that rage, of course. Instead he returned to Botuail with news of his mission's failure. The city was by that time preparing to defend itself, with near everyone who would not fight having left; and Ri with Mainara declared Redan taboo, a condemned man that Avalon itself frowned on, and that druids were allowed to take up arms against. Such declarations were rare, against kings doubly so; against powerful kings almost unheard-of.

But Ri knew, already, how they could win.

He repaired, by hand, the failing walls of Botuail, and raised new towers from the ground with magic. He spoke to captains, some of whom he by now counted as friends, and ensured that food would be brought in by sea. And he used what he knew of war in the drilling of the city's defenders.

Redan's army came in the morning, and they tried from the first to assault the city. They had not expected the defenses to be so strong, Ri recognized immediately; but they threw themselves into every apparent breach regardless. And they died, pierced with arrows, again and again. The towers were angled so as to funnel the attackers into kill zones, and they were near enough impregnable.

Many of the city's defenders cheered at the massacre; Ri remained solemn, though, for he knew Redan was no fool.

Indeed, when the chaff of his army had exhausted itself against the walls of Botuail, Redan led a brilliant charge at the northern wall, one that threw up ladders and, if with horrendous casualties, mounted the fortifications. Ri met them there, a great mace in his hands, forged specially for his size; and with it, he challenged Redan the Bloody to face him, and so the warrior-king did

Redan rode a golden moa, with a reddish stripe along its back. He fought well, but after several minutes his mount made a misstep, and Ri pushed him and the moa both off the wall. And so a challenge did, as it happened, determine Botuail's fate.

Redan was little-mourned; but Ri knew that this was only the beginning. There were too many kings in this world like Redan, who were unconstrained by wisdom or justice.

Only the authority of the druids could limit them.


	55. 2-33: Uenuku 1

The sea spray flew into Uenuku's face as he looked forwards, trying to pick out the shores of Ahuls. He had never been there before; his father, though, had, half a dozen times. It was the breadbasket of the West, hills and valleys cultivated in great plantations. Yet of late it was failing, and as the harvests declined druids had journeyed to solve the problem.

One of them, Uenuku's father was carrying even now; but it was not just any druid. Every child on the ships talked about Ri Domaan, but now Uenuku would be able to boast that he had met him.

Ri was talking about something with Uenuku's father - Linukaidh Destined - as he did his part in rowing (for at present the wind was nearly still). He sat alone, while opposite him were a dozen men; as such, the canoe went straight. Really, Uenuku had thought that the legends of his strength were just that, but some legends were true.

And then, squinting, he saw a gull. "Dad!" he yelled excitedly. "Birds! We're close!"

Linukaidh smiled, then tried to pick out the bird himself. "West," he said. "Well, it's in the right direction, at least - "

And then the canoe shook with impact.

The eyes rose from the waves first. They were on stalks, dripping gray above the beast's head. Below them was a grayish-blue face, whiskered, smooth, and very, very sharp-toothed.

As the serpent struck, Uenuku screamed.

Its maw passed above his head, though, grabbing someone - he couldn't see who. The canoe groaned under the strain of the coils. And Ri was there, stabbing with his staff -

Uenuku could barely breathe, but he saw every instant of the battle anyway. The serpent, as wide as Ri himself and far longer, struck again and again, and Ri, despite the lack of a proper weapon, cut deep gashes into it. He tried to speak words of magic, but the serpent seemed to shrug it off, growing only angrier.

Uenuku ran to the prow, pulling the harpoon out from between two boards. He couldn't see either of his parents, couldn't know what was happening to them - but still he gripped the harpoon, digging it out from its hiding place. "Domaan!" he yelled, and Ri was there, and so was the serpent, its maw chasing the druid now, and Ri threw the harpoon through the beast's two eyes.

The rest of the fight passed in a daze. The serpent tried to escape, but could not. In the end the canoe was more or less a pile of driftwood only barely held together.

"A raft," Ri was saying. Half the crew had made it, many of them hurt, but they managed to tie the boards together enough to wash up on Ahuls a few hours later.

Half the crew had made it. Uenuku's parents were not among them.

Ri stayed with Uenuku, as the shipwreck's survivors trekked southwards along the shore, to Ohuleres. His thoughts were muddled and lost, after all that had happened, but over the four days of the trek his grief grew more settled, and by the time they reached Ohuleres he was himself enough to come up to Ri and ask him what he was to do next.

"Do you have any uncles, or aunts?" Ri asked.

Uenuku had several, but few that he cared for. In the end, Ri said he would bring Uenuku to Teng, to his great-uncle; but the way was long, and so Uenuku spent several months at Domaan's side, sailing from island to island.

Ri was not quite as Uenuku had imagined him, from the stories. He was quiet and serious, and often he seemed slow to make his judgment, compared to some druids Uenuku had met. And the business of a druid was more boring than Uenuku had imagined: in the main, Ri was busy telling stories and settling arguments. Sometimes they were very big arguments, and always they were very good stories, but though Ri was incredibly strong and often really smart as well, moments of heroism were rarer than Uenuku had expected.

But then, as Uenuku had learned, heroism usually involved people dying.

And somehow, over those three months, Uenuku's nightmares stopped, and his memories receded. He was still going to be a sailor - the first time he stepped onto a boat at Ohuleres, he had shivered, but he'd gotten over it quickly. And, in time, he would learn to treasure the great gift that months of traveling at Ri Domaan's side and hearing his musings was.

For now, though, as he embraced his great-uncle and waved Domaan goodbye, he felt almost lost for words.

Ri looked at him and only nodded.

Sometimes, after all, there were no words that needed to be said.


	56. 2-34: Melgiana 3

The years turned quickly, indeed more and more quickly as Melgiana aged. The Great Work proceeded apace, and though Melgiana doubted she would see its end in her lifetime, she still retained some hope. Her students achieved great things, each to their own measure. Some studied ruins, others composed great songs, and others still did the deeds that inspired such songs.

And among those last, Ri Domaan, her last student and her most brilliant, blazed the brightest. He ended Redan the Bloody's brutal reign in Taiar; he drove off the great dragon menacing Kakaowys; he set down a new code of laws for Toruach that reversed the decay of its woods within years. He earned the green robe of a master for his restoration of order in Onngo Auba, and soon after carved himself a two-core staff tipped with a jade sun.

And all along the way, he always turned his personal heroism into institutional respect for druids. Melgiana was not blind to his ambition, but she could not bring herself to rebuke him. After all, she knew the world could do with more men like Ri.

Though, perhaps, not with too many of them.

And so, at the conclave on Taba eight years after Ri's arrival on Avalon, she took her student aside to speak with him of the future, of their respective dreams and also of their respective nightmares.

It did not go as either had expected.

They stood above the lichened cliff, the gale billowing their robes, the skies clouded over but dry. Melgiana felt small before her student - well, she _was_ small, but now Ri had gained an aura of power, and not merely a psychic one. If she had not already decided to name him archdruid -

But before that, she had one last challenge to her student.

"It is true," Ri said in response to her challenge. "I have tried to bolster the strength of the druids. But does Avalon not need that?"

"It does," Melgiana said. "But we cannot be seen to lose our neutrality." Not that Ri had done that, not exactly. But - "We are stewards, not kings."

"I know," Ri said. "But there is overlap between the duties of a king and of a steward. _Do_ you believe I have overstepped my bounds?"

"Do _you_ believe so?" Melgiana asked.

"No," Ri said. "But you are the archdruid, and it is your decision to make."

"Not for long," Melgiana said, and took a deep breath. "I am growing old, Ri. I have strength enough, perhaps, for one final voyage; but the archdruid must have strength that I do not."

"Oh," Ri said. "It will be Anaka, then? Unless you name Mauru after all, but that might not be a good choice. Hinailli, perhaps..."

Melgiana's eyes widened, because Ri's uncertainty was sincere. All this time, bolstering the power of the druids -

All this time, Ri hadn't even considered that he would be the one to, eventually, lead them.

"It will be you, Ri," she gently said. "It must be you. Don't you see?"

Ri stumbled back, as if struck. "It can't be," he said. "Even aside from my origins, I've done too much to expand our remit - if I was to take control, it would seem like a conquest - "

"And if anyone else did," Melgiana emphasized, "their power would rest on yours, and they would be a figurehead. There is no one else who I can expect to match you, in intellect, in wisdom, or in might. And you are beloved."

"I did not - "

"You mean to say," Melgiana said, "that you did not act out of selfish ambition."

"I did not," Ri said. "Believe me, Archdruid. I only tried to do carry out my duty, to the best of my ability."

Melgiana paused, looking away for a moment to gather her thoughts. "I believe you," she truthfully said. "But not everyone will."

The ceremony took place the next day. Megliana threw, with some effort, a coat of blue around Ri's shoulders, and bleached her own to pale blue, to signify one that had abdicated the role of archdruid. Ri carved his new, three-cored staff, and carefully attached the jade sun to it.

He was cheered. Even by Anaka who might well have been envious, even by Mataarth who had once been irritated by Ri's precociousness - even by a crowd of men and women who were more used to giving sagely obscure advice than to rapturous applause. They saw what she did - that Ri's organizational abilities would be enough to lead the druids, and perhaps Avalon, into a new golden age. He charted the plans for the continuation of the Great Work, new incentives for new routes; he spoke, too, of enforcing peace, and of new organization of the druids' studies. It was all built up of brilliant reforms that seemed like common sense once they were said aloud.

But afterwards, for all the celebration, when she found Ri he remained uncertain.

"You have given me the keys to Avalon," he said. "I hope you have not doomed it by that."

And Melgiana shook her head and imparted one last lesson to her former student.

"You always held those keys," she said, "in your mind. Whoever would have raised you, you would have had the power to change everything. All that I have given you is, perhaps, the wisdom to use it rightly - but only time can tell whether you learned enough of it."


	57. 2-35: Ri 4

The means to unify Avalon were, Ri found, within the druids' remit all along. They were arbiters, and as such, there was little that could not be proclaimed wrong, or even taboo. The druids' ability to be listened to when they did so - that was harder.

But people always listened to Ri. They did not always agree, but they listened, and they took him seriously; and that was all anyone needed, to shift the course of history.

Those two years over which Ri extended his magisterium were filled with travel, sometimes travel so rapid that magic was necessary to abet it. But not normally. In the main, it was by ship and by foot that Ri traveled Avalon, engraving his will into custom. His staff of office gained a third helix, but he did his best not to change his manner, nor his ability to talk to the common people of Ysc and the isles. And everywhere he spoke for peace and stability, and also for longevity. He oversaw construction and destruction both, spread tales of innovations, ended wars, and righted injustice. Often, he would be summoned by another master druid, whose counsel was spat on, and enforced that decision.

The kings and chiefs of Avalon, being in the main canny folk, saw the changes quickly enough, but most minded little. The druids collected no taxes, and raised no armies; their authority rested on acceptance.

But then, even if it was the kings that collected tithes, the druids could influence how that money would be spent. And though Ri did not command an army, every druid was trained at least a little in combat, and many - the wizards especially - were as competent as a knight in their own right.

Of course, some among the druids took Domaan's policies as an excuse, and became sources of injustice themselves. He would realize the inevitability of that after it happened. But chastisement worked as well as anything, for them, as those that wanted wealth or power above all had easier routes to them than the druids - and that much, Ri had no intention of changing. And those who were truly rotten, they cast out of the All-Circle.

Ri could not be everywhere himself, but then he was far from alone. Anaka, who was as good as his second, remained on Ysc and its cluster of islands, and the other great masters - Loduen and Hinailli and Dangahian and a dozen besides them, most of them young and hopeful but a few, as was necessary in any council, old and jaded - they too helped guide the path of the world.

But over Ri Domaan's hopes to preserve Avalon forever, there was ever a shadow. For the order he was building relied far too much on him. If he died - and though he had not seemed to age before reaching adulthood, he could not imagine that he was unkillable - then there were plans for a succession, and he felt he had secured that fate well enough. But if he _fell_ -

He did not know where he had come from. He did not know the fates of the six who had preceded him. And yet the rifts above, and the memory of the Violet Sky, of which the entire world as it was now was the legacy -

And the woman who had first taught him to overcome that fear of himself, who had endlessly trusted him, was fading. Melgiana was old, and perhaps her duty had held her up like scaffolding, or perhaps it was simply time, but she did not have long. And her wisdom, which would far survive her, seemed sometimes, during the ocean nights, like optimistic folly.

But they were not bad years, not on the whole. Ri's doubts endured, but so did his duty. He knew what he must do, and the path he now walked was both righteous and irreversible. And Avalon's earth still held kind surprises even for him, and the power that was a part of him still shone. And so long as his gaze was cast downwards or horizontal, bound to what he was building and what he was building atop, there was a kind of calm in those tumultuous years.

Yet nevertheless, Ri Domaan knew that he would have to in time look up.


	58. 2-36: Melgiana 4

The turquoise waves lapped the sides of the _First Star_. To either side, thin atolls broke the surface, smaller and larger rings of reefvalves rising into isles. In most places, it was not enough to support plants, for there was no fresh water - but the larger atolls were green, for the rains fell often.

But not now. Now, Melgiana Pilair watched Whenadha slowly steer the outrigger forwards, avoiding the certain death to either side of the channel - for if the Last Reefs were nearly deserted on land, they were far from it in the water. Melgiana watched the waves not out of boredom, but because her magic held a better chance than anything else of diverting the attentions of a kraken or other leviathan, should it decide to eat them.

Rean's eyes, of course, were better than hers, and some of the sailors' better still. But she still felt younger than she had in years. Travel was full of little irritations, but this last voyage was wonderful despite them all.

The Last Reefs were a place of ill omen. Only their outer reaches had been charted; sea monsters and shifting shoals had destroyed countless expeditions. Ri had been skeptical, but - but if the Archdruid understood so much so easily, Melgiana sometimes thought the Great Work was an exception. It was not merely about mapmaking, it was about understanding Avalon, and the awe of everything the world still held hidden.

Besides which, once upon a time Kakaowys had been a destroyer of ships, and before that Huriat, and first of all Atur, when humanity had only begun to stretch its sleeping limbs out of the cradle that was Ysc.

Still, most of the men that had joined her had their own reasons for not fearing death. For some it was raw daredevil courage, Whenadha among them; for others, such as Rean, it was personal tragedy. For two, Heafrad and Comhengal, it was a desire for redemption for past sins. Both had confessed to murders, yet their sailing ability and genuine repentance had earned them a pardon contingent on their survival.

And Melgiana, of course, was simply old.

"There's an island on the horizon," Rean told her, climbing down from the mast."

"Another atoll?" she asked the younger druid.

"No," he said. "Something bigger."

Melgiana pursed her lips. The charts said nothing about these ranges, near the center of the Last Reefs. Already they had made countless valuable discoveries, so that Whenadha had mentioned returning with that knowledge in store. But Melgiana wanted one last horizon, something truly substantial, rather than merely a maze of shallows.

They had found it, now, yet Melgiana still felt apprehension.

They rowed onwards. No monsters arose to bar their path - only one had, on this expedition, a scaly shark that had easily been calmed. In truth, canoes were hardly filling, for most leviathans. In a sense, their attacks were mistakes.

The isle rose before them, seeming to shimmer with unreality. The water around it was tinted deep green, yet its smell was surprisingly fragrant, even flowery, though all Melgiana's learning could not identify its species.

This was a place of power, she knew. Of power, and therefore of danger. She said as much to the crew, advising caution.

"Mayhaps, then, we should not make landfall?" Whenadha asked.

"Not for long," Melgiana said. "I would walk this land, though I would not wish to sleep upon it."

"Then we could send a party out till nightfall," Whenadha proposed, "and prepare to sail in the morning."

That was a good enough compromise. Slowly, the shore grew closer, the rowers pushing the _First Star_ forwards to the beach. Melgiana was first to jump onto the new land, feeling its sand between her toes, and that beguiling smell, and the thrum of the isle's magical signature, and birdsong resonating with its rhythm.

The party was of five - herself, Heafrad, Comhengal, Oinu, Aomall. They headed inland. The trees and vines rose as dense as ever around them, but the birdsong grew steadily quieter, and the wind too became completely still. The sailors' hair was standing on end. At one point Melgiana turned around to see that they were all trailing a dozen paces behind her, for all their relative youth. But it was hard even for her to make herself keep moving.

"We should turn back," Oinu said, eyes scattered.

"Not yet," Melgiana said, though some part of her thought it insanity. "Not yet."

They had to use a machete in a couple of places, but for the most part the undergrowth was thin, and there were no more signs of animals. This was a still place, one immune to the passage of time. Only the trees -

And then the trees ended.

They walked, half-clambering, upwards onto a rocky ridge. Before and below them, the cyan circle of a lake. Its surface was a perfect mirror, and looking at it, Melgiana could see -

Could see Heafrad crying, and then raising his hands.

Heafrad went for Oinu's machete, reaching to grasp it even as he drove a fist into Aomall's face. Melgiana extended an arm, though, and abruptly he stopped, the magic coming unnaturally easily. The man was hysterically weeping, flailing, and Melgiana sighed as she raised her staff. Heafrad fell unconscious in an instant, but -

But she did not know if he would be sane again when he awoke.

"Go no further," she ordered. "And if Heafrad is still mad when he regains consciousness, kill him. It is the merciful thing."

"What is this place?" Comhengal whispered.

"A silent land," Melgiana said. "When we are used to a din, silence can destroy our minds."

"A metaphorical din, I assume," Aomall said, nursing his nose.

"The din of time," Melgiana said. "If I do not return, go back, and set sail well before dusk. The reverse path should be easier."

And taking a deep breath, leaning on her staff, Melgiana pushed herself forwards through the wall of air.

The mirror of the lake below seemed to still reflect the world at first, but the closer she came, the more Melgiana could feel figments of something else. Images of a great city - no, an _institute_ for study of the phenomenon. Images of a massive wall around the fringes of the isle. Images of Atur, of Rohenster, of Ysc. A procession of druids walking the rolling hills of Taba, a youth with nearly white hair walking towards them.

"Oh," Melgiana thought. She could hardly speak, after all, in this place.

Before her, in the still pool, ages and legends intermingled. Avalon-that-was, Avalon that would be, Avalon that could have been.

"Ri," she thought, the static might of this place carrying her epiphany effortlessly into the depths of the planet and to the Archdruid of Avalon. "I have found a place without time."

She was no longer walking, but willing herself forwards to the pool. Her thoughts were no longer discrete units, no longer expressible as words at all, but she advanced nonetheless. She fed Ri and Anaka her explanation of the phenomenon, though she knew they would not understand all of it, not yet. Perhaps not until it was their own turn to die.

She knew the approaching golden glory that was Ri's father, and the profane descent that was the four vertices of the Warp, and the fragile threads sparkling in starlight, and the treacherous conflagration that would come for them all.

And in that last moment, as her thoughts stretched out into eternity, as Melgiana Pilair, once-Archdruid of the All-Circle, dissolved into the world that was her home and her calling, as even her soul was spread so thin as to become nothingness -

In that last moment, though her thoughts were no longer even remotely human, she found it within herself to say one last coherent sentence to the distant minds of her students.

"The end of my story is but the beginning of Avalon's."


	59. 2-37: Ri 5

Melgiana's final message woke Ri up from his rare sleep. He committed it to memory, every single bit, etching it into his recollection. Then, and only then, did he consider its implications.

His father was coming for him - and soon.

Preparations were made, of course. They were commingled with grief - for Melgiana was gone. The _First Star_ returned to known lands, bereft only of three crew members - Tanns eaten by a sea serpent, Heafrad comatose after losing his mind on the Last Isle, and the former Archdruid...

No one knew what had happened, exactly. Ri did not think anyone would learn, not soon. Anaka said the Last Isle might be the heart of Avalon, a sacred place. But though it was untainted, its legend was not one that drew new expeditions. Not even a body was left of Melgiana Pilair; only her staff and robe were carried back by Aomall.

Nevertheless, Ri did not allow himself to lose his composure. A decisive time was coming for all of Avalon, and it was his responsibility to ensure it went well. And so when a new constellation gradually appeared in the sky, there was a beacon to guide it to the ground.

A physical light, a bonfire on the shore facing Taba; and more importantly, a magical beacon, a faint echo of the skyfire he had seen with his mage-sight on the day his powers had been awoken. A faint echo compared even to the blazing sun of his father he could perceive in orbit.

But enough, he hoped, to guide the fleet to ground.

They had cleared a vast landing region. The druids were gathered in what was almost an unofficial conclave, and there were knights, and merchants, and chiefs, and all sorts of curious folk. Rumor of humans from among the stars had spread across the world, but even Ri did not know exactly what to expect. And for that reason, the knights in the party, atop their impeccably groomed moas, made sure not to put away their blades.

They did not fight each other, though, and stood in companionable silence, even those who remembered long feuds, kin slain and loves stolen. Now was not the time for discord.

The first sign of something was a strong wind coming from the sea. Then, there was what looked at first like an insect, then a great bird, and then finally as the grand machine it was, skimming into the gathering. It was golden, every surface brilliantly shining, and behind it trailed fire. It stopped its flight as it approached the gathering, and as the assembled people backed away, lowered itself to the ground.

A door on its hull - for this entity was without doubt a sky-ship - slid open, and then, flanked by two guards, the source of the psychic presence Ri Domaan had seen stepped out, and the Archdruid stepped forward and knelt.

The guards were superhumanly tall, if not as tall as Ri; they wore shining gold armor, and though unmounted, bore lances. They were among the strongest warriors Ri had ever seen, perhaps the strongest, and both were magically shielded. But for all of that, no one in the gathering spared them more than a glance, for they quickly noticed the figure standing between them. Gold-armored, black-haired, with a face that seemed to shift between possibilities but was ever the face of a righteous leader -

The source of the beacon Ri had seen, so long ago. His father, according to Melgiana. In that moment, though, Ri still could not extract the suspicion that she had been wrong, for he was too used to that self-doubt. But it would be settled now, one way or another. Either he would be accepted, or killed, and he would welcome both. For the figure before him was ruthless and inscrutable, but never monstrous, not like some of the destinies that awaited out there.

And then, he spoke.

"Rise, my son." Then, to the assembly. "People of Avalon! In the name of the Imperium of Man, I greet you all. Who would speak for this world?"

"I would," Ri said, standing and looking around. "Avalon welcomes the star-sailors of the Imperium. I am Ri Domaan, Archdruid of the All-Circle."

"Good," the golden figure quietly said, "good." Then, loudly, "I am the Emperor, and I will tell you of the glorious future we are building." He spoke of the fall, millennia ago, of humanity torn apart and decimated, of the Old Night stained by rifts. And he spoke, too, of his quest to protect and reunite the shards of the human species, a Great Crusade to build unity in a shattered universe. Yet he spoke so convincingly of a future without fear that he was hailed for, in effect, demanding Avalon's loyalty.

Not that Ri's own loyalty had ever been in doubt.

Two of the chiefs demanded ritual challenges. The Emperor faced both champions together, and dismounted them with quick blows using the flat of his flaming blade. Nevertheless, Ri was somewhat surprised to see neither was any worse than bruised. There were shouted oaths of loyalty, but Ri and the druids remained silent for now. The Emperor's dream resonated with him, and he knew the druids would play their role in realizing that dream, but the time for promises was later.

Later, as it happened, was a walk along the shore, the blue-cloaked Ri using his staff as a walking stick. The Emperor - who now seemed the same size as him, though sometimes it appeared that he was only as big as a regular human - walked alongside, looking at the great trees around. They had left the guards - _Custodes_ \- and the Iterator diplomats behind with the crowd, to make friendships and deals. The mood there was a festive one, as was proper, and along the mages' walk there was a generous aura as well.

"I must speak to the other druids," Ri said, "before I swear any oaths. But I have no doubt that the All-Circle will play its part in advancing your dream."

"You need their consent?" the Emperor inquired.

"No," Ri said, "but they have sometimes held back my rashness before, and other times blown away my uncertainty."

The Emperor nodded. "So tell me of what you have built here, Ri," he said.

Ri smiled, and did so. "Not too much, perhaps," he said. "But I feel it has made a better world."

"And that is no small thing," the Emperor agreed. "The hardest, perhaps."

"But..." Ri paused. "Sometimes I wonder if I should have done even less. With the risks as I knew them then... But then, you wear a crown." And Ri had to admit that this was, in some sense, a disappointment. Ri had known many kings, and many were good people, but there was always peril in true dominion.

"For a long time I did not," the Emperor said, thoughtfully. "But humanity needs an Emperor, now, as on Avalon it needed a strong Archdruid. These times are dark, and our enemies numerous."

"Tell me of them," Ri said. "And... could you tell me of myself? I do not quite know what I am, save that I am the seventh, and that has been somewhat of a shadow, at times."

"The Seventh..." The Emperor nodded. "The seventh of twenty. I created twenty transhuman sons - the Primarchs - in the laboratories on Luna, but they were scattered across the galaxy. You are the third that I have found so far."

"I have brothers?"

"And sons, of a sort," the Emperor said. "You were meant to be my generals as the Great Crusade spread across the galaxy, and your armies, the Legiones Astartes, were built with your gene-seed."

There were so many more questions Ri wanted to ask. And the Emperor wanted to answer them, too; Ri could tell as much. "But," the Emperor said, "the time for that will come, as will meeting your Legion. The Imperium is vast, but today is Avalon's."

And that it was. By the time they got back to the landing field, the celebrations were in full swing. Drinking, songs, even some confused attempts at trade, though the language barrier - which only Ri and the Emperor seemed unaffected by, though the Iterators seemed to have some knowledge of the Western Ysc dialect - impeded them. Three more of the skyships had come down, as many as could fit in the clearing. Ri found Anaka as the master druid was telling the Song of Kul to an Iterator. She, like the other druids Ri counted as his advisors, was excited to follow the Emperor's path out of the night. The mages especially were comforted by his presence.

Ri's path, and that of Avalon, were thus determined.

He felt no regret, really. To insert his own musings on eternal structures into a greater ideal fit his aspirations well enough. And the Emperor quickly proved himself to be both a wise and an intelligent man - though that did not mean his courtiers would be the same. This was the destiny he had been built for.

But he wandered into the forest nevertheless, and listened to the soft Teria Falls awhile, for no matter how worthy his new calling was, it would still be wrong to forget or abandon the old.


	60. 2-38: Uenuku 2

News of the Imperium's arrival spread across Avalon faster than fire. Every captain raced to spread word of the strangers from beyond the stars to whom Ri Domaan himself had knelt without a word.

Uenuku had not been at the Meadow of Reunion when the Emperor had descended, but his friend Mainn had, and was happy to share his impressions. "The Emperor was amazing," Mainn had said. "He's taller than Domaan, his sword is on fire when he wants it to be, and just - I don't know how to say it in words, but he was magnificent. Ten times the hero as anyone else I've seen - even Domaan. No offense."

Uenuku shrugged. "I mean, Domaan's his son, isn't he?"

"Apparently. Though I don't get how that works, but whatever. He gave the same sort of speech that Domaan does, except instead of wearing a blue cloak and carrying a staff, he did it in golden armor with a sword, which sounds like it would be gaudy but really wasn't. The people with him - the Imperials - they're normal, though. They live longer, because they have really good healers, even though their year's barely half of an actual year, and their food tastes terrible. But push comes to shove, they're just people. Some of them even fell for Aria's shell trick."

"That seems stupid, for Aria to try that."

"Oh, it was. But she judged they weren't going to kill anyone on a festival day, and turned out she was right."

Uenuku nodded, smiling and chewing on a piece of dried ambrian, his feet dangling off the ledge above the nameless gorge where they'd anchored their ship. "But do you know what they actually want with us?"

"Oh, the usual, probably," Mainn said. "Fealty, trade, and apparently recruits for their armies. The knights' kids will be falling over themselves to get in."

"We could try too," Uenuku pointed out. "I'd like to sail the star-seas."

"Yeah," Mainn said with a smile. "See new worlds, meet new monsters and stab them. Could be a fun life. Could be a short one, too. But hey, someone's going to need to fly... Race you down?"

Uenuku didn't respond, choosing to save his breath for the charge downslope. They brushed past ferns and flowers, idly exuberant. Their childhood was treading towards an end, but they still had time, for now, for meaningless drifting on the ocean of life, even as they learned to sail both it and its literal cousin.

Uenuku won the race, but it was close enough that Mainn struck up a moment's dispute about the matter, which was quickly forgotten as they finished their snack and set off downstream. Below, and not too far below at that, the creek they were in would rejoin the Nah River, and then the Nah would wind through two and a half orchards before reaching Wyscokar and the sea, where Unn Singd waited for them in order to start his voyage to Atur. And on that journey, Uenuku knew, perhaps they would find monsters and storms, or perhaps riches and pride, or only the sea and the shore; and their life, too, and all of Avalon's, was departing into a greater and more terrible realm, one where they (though for now he only guessed as much) would challenge the skies themselves, and face the equal and opposite retaliation. There, too, both they and their world might find deeps or shallows, ruin or triumph, or perhaps nothing at all.

But the search and the discovery, in themselves - they were already enough. They were already a life's work. And for that reason, as they were carried downstream, despite all the darkness he had experienced and that yet to come, Uenuku looked ever forward, to the ominous horizon, with a small smile on his lips.


	61. 2-39: Abdemon 4

Abdemon - Legionnaire, Solar Heralds, Fourth Company - squeezed himself out of the compartment gradually, to the wailing of boarding sirens, mentally chiding Sergeant ul-Emeree for assuming that it could hold an Astarte without trouble. Although, he noted, the sergeant was struggling with extracting himself as well.

"Vox-silence," ul-Emeree ordered. "Abdemon, take your demi-squad and hide on the enemy ship. If discovered, hijack it. We'll hold this transport and take prisoners."

Abdemon nodded, clipping the psy-flare to his belt. They'd gone over the plan before, but it was hard enough to remember now, his hearts beating intensely with pre-combat tension. A brief schematic showed the boarding locations, to one of which ul-Emeree's group now rushed. Abdemon's went for the boarding torpedo.

Time was of the essence. The enemy ship hung in the void, so close it could almost be seen through the portholes. The auspex, whose findings had been transmitted into the shielded compartments the Astartes had been stuck in, indicated that it was shaped somewhat like an avian, which could be either aesthetic preference or functional, or perhaps a combination of both. In space, with no need to consider aerodynamics in ship design, xeno vessels especially had a tendency to look bizarre without limit.

Abdemon was gaining command of the demi-squad more and more often. Ul-Emeree was testing him, that was clear enough. But if they didn't survive this mission - and no one knew what their chances were - that wouldn't matter in the least.

As such, Abdemon led Ryrrh, Shevland, Viterov, and Magnaralk into a boarding torpedo. Their launch was, in principle, completely silent to all sensors, using spring-stored energy that had been prepared well before this transport entered Warp. But 'all sensors' only went so far, when dealing with xenos. Expecting the unexpected was merely the default, here.

"So," Magnaralk said as the torpedo approached the white hull of the enemy ship, "any words before battle, Abdemon?"

"Let's hope the battle is not yet," Abdemon said. "But if it is... well, in that case, let's give them blood and fire, brothers. I don't think there's much more to say than that, really. Also, we're just barely going to miss that transport artery."

"Xenos ship," Viterov noted.

"It's a transport artery," Ryrrh insisted. "Or a decoy transport artery, but probably a real one."

Viterov shrugged. "I have no idea how you could build this thing."

"Neither do I," Ryrrh admitted, "but how you could use it is more obvious."

"Yeah," Viterov muttered. "Obvious. Also, is it just me, or is it cruiser-sized?"

Cruiser-sized was an exaggeration. Nevertheless, the ship was still big enough that taking it with a half-squad was - well, risky, to say the least. If the xenos fought like alamels, it would be trivial; if they fought like orks, well, then they'd have to try and conceal themselves.

"Impact in ten," Abdemon said. Bolters were raised, seats braced, and then the boarding torpedo slammed into the xeno vessel, chipping away its structure so much that for a moment Abdemon feared they were going to go straight through the ship entirely. But a moment later, the torpedo stopped, and Abdemon swung open its lid.

Only to stare down the barrels of several cannons.

"Surrender," the lead xeno said in heavily accented Mebenese Gothic.

Abdemon used the momentary distraction to strike.

He dashed forward, cutting the xeno's helmet off his shoulders in a single stroke, the squad following. But if the first blow was the Solar Heralds', if nothing else for its sheer audacity, the follow-ups were not. Blade met blade, guns fired, and if the element of surprise had taken the cannons out of play, some of these xenos were _good_ at melee.

Abdemon tried not to lose himself in his own fight too much. He blocked a strike that almost decapitated Viterov, and for a few moments was back-to-back with Shevland. The battle was not like some, brutal melees that he had engaged in; there was a choreography to it, an overlay of patterns that twisted the xenos just barely aside from Abdemon's instinctual strikes.

But Abdemon was not fighting on instinct.

The world condensed to a small circle about him. He did not shout orders, for the pace was too fast for any of them to obey them. Instead, he tried to guide the flow of the battle by introducing kinks in the xenos' metaphorical melody. A cannon down there, a parry not wasted here, and all of a sudden the xenos were dispersing, melting away in a single moment.

Abdemon spun, on guard, breathing heavily. Ryrrh and Shevland did the same. Viterov was lying down, face-first, but he slowly hauled himself onto one arm. Magnaralk was cut from a dozen directions, left as shredded strips, surrounded by several dead xenos. None wounded.

Abdemon tried not to let the loss unbalance him too much. There was too much of a chance that none of them would make it out of here. But he still gave a silent salute to his brother.

"To the bridge," he ordered, too tired to think further. "Ryrrh?"

"Probably left?" Ryrrh guessed.

They ran, Viterov nursing his mangled arm. Magnaralk's body, they had to leave behind; there was no Apothecary here, to collect the gene-seed, and they'd have to hope the xenos wouldn't desecrate it. The ship around them was bizarre, seeming to be ribbed as if it was made of painted bone. Abdemon's confidence in his ability to fly it was falling by the second, and the stealth plan was certainly out. But an alternative tactic did not present itself.

They were ambushed twice on the way. Brief spurts of blade and shot, spurts they all came through (though Ryrrh was speared through the side) but that left them glancing twice at every shadow. The 'bridge' turned out to be an empty room, though, as if a deliberate taunt.

"I admit," Ryrrh said, "you were right, Viterov. This ship doesn't make any damned sense at all."

"Set up defensive position," Abdemon ordered. "We'll hold them here, at least. Maybe force a stalemate."

"And then what?" Viterov challenged.

"Let's just stay alive," Shevland pleaded, and they set up pieces of the bulkheads into barricades. The xenos didn't seem especially interested in besieging them, but with Viterov and Ryrrh wounded and no idea of any objective, Abdemon wasn't sure what to do.

Until, that is, a massive silhouette in gray plate entered the room. An Astarte silhouette.

"So," he said with a slightly mocking intonation, "that's where the Solar Heralds are hiding, eh?"

"Where in the Warp did you come from?!" Viterov spat.

The Astarte laughed. "The _Principium Universalis_. We were in the area, and Sergeant ul-Emeree requested our help. Sergeant Zonaus Paran, Fifth Company, Thirteenth Legion."

Abdemon clasped Paran's hand. "Legionnaire Abdemon, Fourth Company, Third Legion. Thanks for rescuing us, I suppose. How many men are with you?"

Enough, it turned out, was the answer. The xeno vessel was large but lightly staffed, and much of its crew seemed to have abandoned it in the assault's early stages. Nevertheless Paran's strike force - five squads - had lost six Astartes in the assault. But the ship was scuttled quickly enough, with Viterov and Ryrrh shipped off to the Thirteenth's Apothecarion while Abdemon and Paran served as lookouts for the War-Born. And soon enough, they were flying off the crippled ship, which no doubt would be examined by the Mechanicum for clues to defeating this enemy.

The intermittent combat and the thrill of rescue were enough that Abdemon could barely consider his words to his sergeant. In the end, he decided, the best policy was sheer honesty. They had failed, but failed against substantial opposition. The failure to formulate a plan was Abdemon's own.

When he met ul-Emeree, he found the sergeant missing half his moustache and bearing a new scar across his face. "Brother-sergeant," he said, standing to attention.

"Brother Abdemon," ul-Emeree said, and then - shockingly - stepped forward and embraced Abdemon, who was unsure what to say. "It's good to see you alive. I'd thought..."

"Magnaralk didn't make it," Abdemon said, giving a quick debrief of what had occurred on board the alien vessel. Ul-Emeree listened in what seemed almost like respect.

"We lost Matecus and Armaspik," ul-Emeree said. "And that was with the War-Born showing up almost immediately... And compared to a lot of the single squads, we were lucky. On the _Miter_ , half the Eighteenth Company was lost."

"That's... disastrous," Abdemon said, lost for words.

"It is," ul-Emeree agreed. "At least the Solar Heralds were mostly dispersed in larger groups. A lot of the Thirteenth's and especially Sixteenth's insertion teams were single squads, and they were mown down. We underestimated the enemy, and we paid for it. The fact that you kept four Astartes alive in the midst of their ship speaks volumes of you. With that, I've recommended that you be promoted to sergeant, and Ryrrh, Viterov, and Shevland promoted to your squad."

That was such a surprise that Abdemon could do little more than say the normal words of thanks, but on the upside, ul-Emeree also seemed too distracted to say more than the normal words of warning. "But," he said, "did any team actually succeed in the objective?"

"Past taking prisoners and crippling the xeno ships," ul-Emeree said, "no. Perhaps, of course, one of the Luna Wolves' squads managed to infiltrate them, rather than being entirely lost... But it's unlikely. We'll need to find their base another way."


	62. 2-40: Cassian 2

The campaign for the Merret Corridor had been difficult. Desperate, even, some would have called it, but Cassian Vaughn had been part of abundant desperate campaigns, and Merret was not one of them. The Dragon Warriors had fought twice as hard as ever, and though not all had lived, most had. Victory had been theirs, even if it had taken longer than Vaughn would have liked.

And afterwards, they had flown to Fenris. At first the Merret task force, alone; but then more and more of the Eighteenth joined their fleet, as their immediate duties gradually wound down, the _Klostzatsz_ leading what was a genuine Legion fleet. Vaughn ordered the Legion to wait for them where necessary, even if it delayed their own reunion with their Primarch.

Perhaps it was simply uncertainty. Perhaps even some unconscious resistance to giving up command. Whichever was the case, though, that voyage would inevitably come to an end, in time. The Dragon Warriors' fleet hovered in orbit around Fenris, the world from which they would hereafter recruit.

It didn't look like much, admittedly, not most of it. A snowball punctuated with volcanoes. Only the northernmost lands bore marks of heavy human settlement. But then, that mattered to Vaughn very little, in the end. It was a human world, and that held its true importance.

Vaughn had wondered whether they would meet their new commander aboard the _Klostzatz_ or on the surface of Fenris; Valmar Russ sent his preference for the latter. As such, seven thousand Space Marines descended to the coordinates sent in. The descent was difficult, but it wasn't a combat drop, and the landing beacons were strong enough to blot out even the foul weather.

On the surface, though, the day was fine enough - cloudy and freezing, but at least without precipitation. Vaughn ordered the Astartes to form up in ranks, elements of ten Chapters taking their places in a vast grid, Vaughn taking one last time his place at their fore. He looked around the Chapter Masters - Oma'kal, Talait, Ba'ateon...

They had led the Eighteenth Legion to victory after impossible victory. They had safeguarded the nascent Imperium against a great litany of threats, often at the cost of their lives. Yet for all of that, though their assignments were rarely kind, it had been the greatest honor Cassian Vaughn thought possible to lead them for two solar decades.

Reaching the front of the procession, he quickly saw the primarch's figure. He was dark-skinned, unarmored, a dragon-scale cloak cast around his shoulders and a ragged beard circling his mouth. He was, of course, also enormous even in comparison to an Astarte, if anything bigger than Faro Aquilair. Next to him, a winged reptile crouched, looking curiously at the Dragon Warriors.

Cassian Vaughn knelt. "My lord," he said, "the Eighteenth Legion."

"Rise, Legion Master," Valmar said, before looking out at the kneeling Legion. "Rise, my sons!"

Somewhat uncertainly, Vaughn climbed to his feet, the other Astartes following suit.

"You kneel out of respect," Valmar spoke, his voice carrying effortlessly through the howling wind, "but respect must be earned. You kneel out of fealty, and I am glad to see it, but the work of reforging the Eighteenth Legion is only beginning.

"On Sedna, Ti, Merret, and dozens of other planets, you have protected humanity from the outer dark. You have been heroes, casting yourselves into fire to save others, holding the breach no matter what. Your saga is a grim one, sometimes unremembered, but all the more essential for it.

"That which will come now is but another verse in that saga. I would not have the Legion divided between Terrans and Fenrisians, or allow any other cracks in our unity. For a time, we will remain here, and you will learn and train as one with my newly recruited gene-sons. For a time, the Eighteenth will recover from the turmoil of war, regather its strength for greater deeds to come. And afterwards, we will return to the Great Crusade, for the Emperor and for humanity."

Valmar talked a little more in that vein. He spoke with pride of the Eighteenth, and Vaughn's hearts swelled with honor at that. Far too many, among the upper echelons of the Imperium, had overlooked the Eighteenth until their intervention truly became necessary. But, he said, change would be necessary.

"In Fenrisian," Valmar said, "you shall be the Draka Fenryka; but in Gothic, you have a name, and I will not take it from you - Dragon Warriors!" Vaughn cheered with the crowd at that. "The Legion's symbol shall evermore be a drake in flight, and its color icy bluish-white with fire-red trim. I do not decree this to take your history away, but to mark a new epoch. For though your past is heroic, we cannot live in the past."

Besides which, Valmar implied without saying it, they would not be relegated to last stands, not anymore. A Legion led by a son of the Emperor, after all, would certainly be allowed and expected to fight at the forefront of the Crusade.

"Cassian Vaughn," Valmar said, stepping forward, "your leadership has been exemplary. Though you can be Legion Master no more, you will be the sole Dragonlord of the Legion, and remain at my right hand. Will you thus serve?"

"I will," Cassian said, bowing his head, "my primarch."

Valmar nodded. He did not outline tactical changes to the Legion, but spoke rather of their role as defenders of mankind and of the further tests that lay ahead. He spoke broadly, because the time for specifics would come later, but for all of that Cassian could tell, and was relieved to know it, that the Legion was in good hands.

But then, his own tale had not yet come to an end. There would be further wars to wage, until either his death or the Imperium's triumph.

But for now, below the threatening skies, among a roaring crowd, Cassian Vaughn let himself be carried along with the present.


	63. 2-41: Severian 4

"We need to move," Severian said, pushing Melanan along. Yujavriel was ahead of them, scouting the hallway. "They'll find us soon."

"You go ahead," Melanan murmured, weak from the blood loss. "I need to shoot something. 'Sides, don't want to leave a blood trail."

Severian clenched his teeth. His gut told him Melanan was right. Staying here meant death. But he wasn't going to leave a battle-brother behind entirely.

Severian tore off Melanan's armor piece by piece. "I'll carry you," he said. His own body was on the edge, in this series of narrow escapes. Outside them roiled something that may or may not have been the Warp. The rest of Yujavriel's squad were dead, shot down by the xenos in one engagement or another. But Yujavriel had the psy-flare, and while that remained the case, their mission had not yet failed.

Even if their death was all but assured, now. There was some - not much, but some - resentment Severian felt at that. They had been on the tip of the spear, again and again, and one day it was inevitable that the spear would chip.

They'd infiltrated successfully, at first. Run from cover to cover, for long enough to let the xenos craft disengage. Then the first time they'd been cornered. Pazweidan had given his life to cover their retreat, the first one. Ever since then, they'd been hunted.

Severian did not find being prey to his liking at all.

He ran with Melanan on his back, trying to keep up with Yujavriel. The Luna Wolves' savagery had seen them kill, their luck had seen them survive, and their will might yet see them fulfill their objective, but all of that seemed woefully insufficient at present, the bony corridors claustrophobic, the enemy thousand-eyed.

"We need to get to a porthole," Yujavriel called back. "Try and see where we are."

"We should go up, then," Severian guessed. Their orientation had flipped around a dozen times, but still Severian kept some semblance of a map in his mind. The enemy ship was a convoluted maze, but it obeyed realspace physics.

They found the window, in the end. Perhaps it was simply a transparent section of hull - hard to tell. Around them, the solar sails of the xeno ship, and beyond that the void, and within it, careening towards them...

No, they were careening towards it. Sails and spires and intricate designs, white and gold and iridescent with all the shades of possibility. Severian's mind boggled at the spaceship's scale - even now, when it took up half the sky, its individual features were too small to be seen. It seemed to sing, too, an echoing not-melody of stealth and necessity.

"That's it," Yujavriel said. "It has to be."

Which was when the xenos found them.

Tall, pointed-helmed, the pirates that had been harassing the Shedim Drifts were exceptionally agile and accurate. Worse, they fought smart. Already Severian realized they were being pushed back into a crossfire. Melanan climbed off his back, clenching his bolter. "Go," he mouthed, but Severian still couldn't see an escape route.

"Severian," Yujavriel said. "I'm setting the flare off. Give me thirty seconds."

Of course - they were all but there now. Severian and the immobilized Melanan laid down a curtain of protective fire, only snipers' shots hitting them seemingly from nowhere. Melanan was dead within ten seconds, but the xenos shot him a couple more times to be sure, buying Severian essential time. The chronometer ticked - fifteen seconds left, twelve, ten. He was bleeding from a dozen places, but no fatal wounds. Something speared through Yujavriel's knee, but the sergeant kept working. More fire, and a lightly armored female warrior stepped forwards, and suddenly the world was pain -

And then a flash, felt as much as seen, the psychic flare doing its job. A beacon to the Imperial fleet, under the _Gloriana_ and the _Harbinger of Doom_. A beacon, too, in a more literal sense. The xenos seemed to be blinded, and keeled over in pain, but Yujavriel pulled Severian onwards, somehow less pained than he was. They staggered onwards; had their enemies not been disabled by the flare, they'd have killed the Luna Wolves a dozen times by now. As it was, they passed through the stillness, and somehow came out the other side.

The xenos would definitely be able to follow the trail of blood, now. Moving around had lost its purpose; besides, they were both too injured. "Defensible position," Yujavriel said.

"Near a window," Severian added, trying to haul himself onwards, every step a supreme effort of will. But they followed one another, and somehow they got to another porthole. The stars were beyond and, among them, a new constellation was slowly emerging. There were voices below, they were being searched for, would soon be found - would likely not be able to resist -

But then the ship shuddered, and split.

Severian didn't know which weapon, of which Legion, had hit the xenos ship. All he knew was that he and Yujavriel were laying, on the verge of unconsciousness, in a fragment of stuff in an endless void of nothing, the air rushing out, and everything was very small, and...

And he came to in the main Apothecarion aboard the _Harbinger of Doom_ , bright lights blinking overhead, even as three Astarte and four Titan Legions assaulted Craftworld Mor-rioh'i outside.

"Did Yujavriel make it?" was his first question.

"In a sense," came the answer.


	64. 2-42: Ri 6

It was strange, to look upon Avalon from outside it.

Ri Domaan stood aboard the _Bucephelus_. His father's flagship was in high orbit, preparing to depart onwards upon its mission of reunion. The Sixth Legion Astartes would follow its path, with only a few Iterators remaining on Avalon to assist Anaka with integrating the world into the Imperium.

"And what of me?" he asked to the silent glass before him. "Where will you send me, Father?"

"To Terra," came the Emperor's voice from behind him.

Ri did not ask how the Emperor had concealed his presence - a mage (or psyker, as per the Imperial term) as powerful as him had many ways. Instead, he thought of what little he knew of Terra. Humanity's first homeworld, the heart of the Imperium...

That said little, too little, of what it was actually like to stand upon it, and how it would differ from Avalon. "Tell me of Terra," he said.

"Which Terra?" the Emperor asked wistfully. "The Terra of my youth, the Terra of the Age of Strife, Terra-that-is, Terra-that-will-be... All of them are different."

"Perhaps," Ri acknowledged, "but it is Terra-that-is that I will be coming to."

The Emperor smiled. "A world in the middle of a rebirth. There are still wastelands, still sick cities. The oceans are under construction, still, for they were drained during the Age of Strife. It is a world that has lived through many ages, and bears the marks of them all, but at the moment it is a world of gold and gray..."

The Emperor's answers were often such - getting at the heart of a topic, but sometimes without passing through its body. About the rifts, the Emperor spoke of the distant realm of the Warp, through which ships passed in their voyages between stars, and of the monsters within, and of the relation the Warp bore to all magic; but above all his lesson, on the psychic, was of caution. But about so much else, about the vision he had - there, his dreams seemed to reach far beyond any notion of restraint.

Though what other dreams one such as the Emperor could have had, Ri did not know.

"But you will see it soon enough," the Emperor said, "and meet your Legion and your brothers. You have command of the _Golden Trace_."

"I know nothing about commanding a starship," Ri pointed out.

"Then learn," the Emperor said.

And there was so much to learn about, in this wider world that was now revealing itself to Ri. Histories, sciences, crafts. He was to be a general in the Emperor' war of unification, which he understood for the necessity it was; but even for him, it would take time to ready himself for his place.

He would not abandon Avalon, though. His world would become the Seventh Legion's base of operations and recruitment, but aside from that the Imperium would not interfere in its function; for it was more than merely another conquering empire, save when it was precisely that.

The Emperor's decisions seemed strange to Ri, sometimes. They were, of course, built on a history grander than all of Avalon's, and so he trusted his father to have reason behind his choices. Nevertheless, he did not let his trust abjure questioning, especially since he knew that these days were among the few he would spend with the Emperor alone - for one who was both warleader and ruler had little time to be a parent.

As to Ri's own supposed children, the Astartes of the Seventh Legion, he knew nothing thus far. The Sixth Legion, however, left him with doubts about them. They were uncontrollable, casually violent, and all in all seemed more destroyers of worlds than their defenders. Legion Master Enoch Rathvin was respectful, but beneath his words seemed to be a disdain for Avalon - perhaps, admittedly, merely because of the delay in the First Expeditionary Fleet's progress. There was that competitive spirit, to grab more victories more quickly than other Legions, which was quite contrary at times to ensuring that those victories lasted.

Nonetheless, the unaugmented crew of the _Golden Trace_ proved easier to deal with. The ship was a frigate, tiny compared to the _Bucephelus_ but still a settlement in space in its own right. They deferred to Ri instinctively, and though Shipmaster Phalon was not entirely satisfied with transport duty, he was still inordinately proud to be transporting a primarch. That Ri had not even known a primarch was what he was until recently did not especially matter.

They departed at the same time, but in opposite directions. The Imperial fleet crept to the Mandeville point, and sank, in an instant, into the horror beyond reality. How any could take that trip for granted was beyond Ri - it was a plunge into horror itself, the heart of taint, only the barely understood technologies of the Gellar field protecting them from a fate that made drowning seem joyful; and he had to steel himself before the _Golden Trace_ departed.

"Enter Warp," he calmly ordered once that was done.

They were a speck of reality in an infinity of abominations - a fact that he understood viscerally as so few of the crew seemed to. And despite that, as the _Golden Trace_ flew to Terra, Ri Domaan stood upon its bridge and genuinely looked forward, with vivid curiosity, to the future.


	65. 2-43: Valmar 8

They sat in the strategium of the _Klostzatz_ , myriad charts hovering on the holo-table before them.

Of the Fenrisians, besides Valmar, only Jorin was here. It would have been wrong to raise too many of his guard to high command at once, for all that only a few of them remained. Besides which, the others - well, Ulbrandr, for instance, would learn the ways of the Apothecary, and in those arts he was still an apprentice by Imperial standards. But Jorin was a different matter - one of the few that had fought alongside Valmar from the beginning, his second-in-command on Fenris. It warmed Valmar's hearts greatly that he had, against the odds, survived implantation.

Besides Jorin, here were Cassian Vaughn, Captain Bosch Tebriaz, who had been Vaughn's equerry, and the six Chapter Masters of the Legion. Those Chapters were by now of wildly distinct sizes. Artellus Niticus's Fourth was the largest at four thousand warriors, whereas Shai Thep's Sixth numbered only five hundred men after suffering the worst brunt of the Space Hulk incursion at Triceas. The Companies within those Chapters were of even more varied size, having suffered wildly divergent histories of victory and loss.

Some suggested reorganizing the Legion, so as to streamline its structure. Of course, further decades of campaigning would inevitably disturb it again, and besides that scouring the legacy of the past was not Valmar's preference. For the most part, then, he ordered the Legion's organization preserved.

But its tactical approach was a different matter.

"These losses are unsustainable," Valmar eventually said.

"The Legion's size - "

"Has dropped to nearly nothing multiple times, leading it off the frontlines before it could be rebuilt. To flirt with extinction once is heroism, but it makes for a poor habit."

Vaughn sank back into his chair, seeming more chastised than Valmar had intended. But these were words that needed to be said, if only behind closed doors. The Dragon Warriors' record was rightly a point of pride, but if their course was not adjusted, Valmar could see it destroying them.

"Reticence to retreat is understandable," the primarch continued. "Especially for warriors as strong as you have been. But sometimes, a position cannot be held. Sometimes, the land itself crumbles beneath you."

"Only on Fenris," Niticus said with a smile, shaking his head. "No disrespect intended, my lord - you are entirely correct, but the metaphor does not easily transfer."

"There will be other worlds like Fenris," Vaughn put in.

"There will," Valmar acknowledged. "Not all of them. It is not that the Dragon Warriors' doctrine has lacked efficiency, but it has been risky."

"It's strange," Jorin mused. "You're not a gambler, are you, Dragonlord Vaughn? No, I supposed not. There are different strategies, that one uses in any game of chance, based on how skilled one is and one's position. The champion with a great lead will play conservatively, where the novice will have reason to go all-in."

"The concept is hardly unknown," Sukhang put in.

"The question," Jorin continued, "is whether the Imperium is the champion or the novice."

The Chapter Masters clamored to acclaim the Imperium as the former, but Valmar leaned back, turning the question over in his mind - for Jorin could have insight like that, sometimes. Against most foes, the war machine of the Imperium was as unstoppable as the tide, but all the same, on the galactic scale its domain was a single brushstroke on an undiscovered canvas.

"There will be battles," Valmar said, leaning forward, "where we will have to stand to the last, no matter the cost. The Eighteenth must not lose the capacity to do so. But neither must we allow ourselves to become inflexible."

"The failing - "

"Dragonlord Vaughn, the failing was not yours. It was not anyone's, not yet, for it was an inchoate failing, one that had not yet grown to be real." Valmar emphasized this point, hoping to absolve his gene-sons of undeserved guilt. But in the end, sparing their lives was more important than sparing their feelings. "We are preventing the illness, rather than curing it."

And with a swipe of his hand, he swept the holo-display aside and began laying out his intentions for Legion reorganization. Firstly, a greater emphasis on tactical flexibility, both on the individual and squad level, and mobility as a whole. More vehicles, which the forges of the Legion's new fortress upon the heights of Asfryk, overlooking Thengirik (itself a massive project, which Valmar wondered at the Mechanicum's ability to complete even within a Fenrisian decade) would soon begin to produce. But there was a recognition, too, of the Dragon Warriors' existing expertise in defensive warfare. Building on the past, rather than washing it away.

"Some companies do not have the manpower to execute those changes," Thep noted.

That, too, was part of Valmar's plan. In practice, some companies had been wounded too deeply to come back in the form they'd possessed. In such cases, the survivors would become divided into dedicated Packs, which would fulfill the role of scouts on a strategic scale, ranging ahead of their Expeditionary Fleets. Their mission was not to seek death, nor some misguided redemption - only to fight on alongside their fire-forged brothers, on the wild frontiers of the Crusade. New companies would be formed from new recruits - Fenrisian and Terran alike - and, of course, viable companies would receive reinforcement.

And those who were lost but not dead entirely - they would be rebuilt. Sometimes, it would be by entombment in the Dreadnought chassis that were slowly being sent to the Legions; sometimes, by direct cybernetic enhancement. The possibilities that all these creations had -

For things other than war, as well. Valmar thought of Geri and Hral, lying vitrified beneath Thengirik. Could he rebuild _them_?

As ever, he was not sure if he could, but he was sure he must try. To rebuild Geri and Hral, as he would rebuild the Dragon Warriors...

Without destroying that which they had been.

As with the Dragon Warriors.


	66. 2-44: Faro 13

The battle blazed across the void, in a place far from any stars or worlds. An empty patch of space, which would have gone through all of time without notice had it not been for this clash. Faro Aquilair stood in the strategium of the _Gloriana_ , gazing at the plots of the war's maneuvers through this assault upon the pirate - the _eldar_ \- base.

They were not promising.

"Have the Legio Osedax dropships retreat to Swarm Strider," he commanded. "Battle Group Victor, abandon your attack run."

It galled Faro to issue orders that were on the border between inaction and retreat, especially given the price all three Legions had paid to reach this place. But he had no choice. The only other option was to cast the dice and throw everything into the breach. The only problem with such a plan is that it would be as likely as not to result in the death of three Legions.

Faro had a tendency for the dramatic, but this was one roll of the dice too many even for him.

"Lord primarch," came the voice of Legion Master Minos, "you cannot be thinking of retreat!"

"Not retreat," Faro said, "consolidation. I don't have the support you'd need to make a dent in this... station."

'Station' was a woefully inadequate term. The white-and-gold object was, on the one hand, clearly a spaceship, having demonstrated the capacity for mobility - even, most likely, interstellar travel. At the same time, its sheer size was that of a small planetoid. And its design -

Before, Faro had not thought the creations of xenos could ever match the glory of Terra, let alone the dreams humanity was capable of. But looking upon this - this _world_...

The Emperor knew of these xenos, knew more, surely, than he had told Faro. This was a test. But it was hard to remember that, even looking at only a model of the base and not its true form. It was formed like grim necessity expressed in the most beautiful language, like the peak of a mountain hidden in the clouds. There was something more than mundane reality in it, perhaps something psychic - but there was also the elaborately scintillating web of the spires and struts, which humans could certainly have built, but which he was not sure even he could have designed.

These were not like the orks, or ak'kaireth, or even the multitude of human fragments the Expeditionary Fleets had found galaxywide. Here was a civilization that some part of Faro mourned, even as he destroyed it.

Unfortunately, the civilization was also so well-protected as to make that destruction a problem.

"My lord," Keyshen said after Minos cut the vox link, "regarding consolidation... the window for assault will not grow any more favorable over time."

"It will not," Faro admitted. "We had the strength of surprise, but it proved insufficient."

"What is your plan, then?"

Faro would have liked to retreat and regroup. That, alas, was impossible. If they lost the enemy entirely, they would never find them again. No, at least a defended detachment had to remain behind - although...

"Send word to Meben," Faro said, growing more excited with every word. He twirled _Farlight_ in his hands as he did, realizing the resolution. "Any fleet that tries to leave here will be intercepted - they can't threaten shipping in the Drifts anymore."

"A siege?" Thrallas asked, turning to face him.

"For now," Faro said, "a siege. If they try to break out, all the better for us. If not - why, we may not be able to starve them, but a stalemate can be resolved. We have far greater mobile strength, so... perhaps set up a relativistic asteroid?"

"Slow and expensive," Thrallas acknowledged, "but it'll kill that city. Which I'd almost regret."

Faro made no mention of his own doubts. Now was not the time for them. "Pull back both flanks," he ordered. "Battlegroup Radiance and the fleet of the Thirteenth to patrol duty." He gave the coordinates, and the approximate search patterns. "We'll be here for a while. Nothing enters the target, and most of all, nothing leaves. We are the shield of the Shedim Drifts, right now, the wall around the xeno menace. Our vigilance must not falter. I will find a way to end this threat once and for all, I promise you that - but not today. Today, sealing them into the pit that shall be their own doom is victory enough."

The war would continue. Faro did not make promises lightly. But... well, a period of rest did not seem so terrible, even if he regretted that it could not be on Cthonia. Time to work on a million non-martial plans...

But time, also, to strategize, for him and the enemy alike.

The Imperium of Man and the eldar of the Shedim Drifts had met blades for the first time, and if neither had yet drawn more than first blood, that did not imply the duel was anything less than lethal.


	67. 2-45: Enoch 2

"Warriors of the Sixth!" Enoch Rathvin yelled. "To me!"

The damned vox wasn't working. Well, no wonder, on a world with this strange a magnetic field. Tranzentan was toxic to all sorts of machinery, to the point that the Rout had stripped down their power armor. Some of the human contingent proved completely combat-incapable on this disaster of a moon.

Which was not to ascribe worse traits to it than it deserved. The actual world was, for the most part, a nice enough place to live, fertile and expansive, with only the occasional supervolcano shadowing the idyll. Its people, with their erratic technology, had firmly refused peaceful integration into the Imperium.

The Sixth Legion now taught them the magnitude of their mistake. "For the Emperor!" Rathvin yelled, running not quite at the head of the charge but close to it. The Tranzetanian warriors scattered into the air as the Sixth approached, but bolters, at least, were still mostly reliable on this planet.

Not totally - Niv had to throw his weapon as it began to overheat, as if it was a plasma gun instead of a bolter. It impacted amidst the Tranzentians, sending two charred corpses to the ground. Enoch kept firing, containing fire meant to thin the enemy numbers and to keep them occupied.

They were deployed in a supporting role today, after all.

Cananti growled as he turned to his commander. "What wouldn't I give to come at them with a chainsword," he admitted.

"Who cares?" Rathvin asked. "You couldn't catch them with a jump pack, we've tried. And this battle's over anyway."

A comet of gold slammed into the aerial Tranzentanian formation. Their hoverpacks abruptly shorted out, and the Rout emptied their magazines into dazed men fallen to ground. The air was thick with released anticipation, with glory and fury and, above all, power. Rathvin couldn't really see more than ten meters in front of his face, so blinding was the light, but he smiled anyway.

The light dimmed, revealing the figure at its heart, surrounded by a semiconscious army.

"Surrender," the Emperor said, extending his hand.

"Stand down!" came the immediate cry among the Tranzentanians. "Stand down!"

Enoch Rathvin did so, as well, as the Tranzentanians gathered themselves up and threw down their weapons. The day was won, and the days after would be for the iterators.

Much of their journey through the West Cygnus Corridor had demonstrated that sort of pattern. Well-defended worlds that briefly defied the Emperor, but could barely stand against the auxilia, to say nothing of the Custodes and Astartes. The Rout was endlessly loyal, and Rathvin would do his duty in punishing those planets for their insolence, but it wasn't exactly the glory he'd been hoping for. Or, well, glory was empty, but he'd hoped for something to enhance their reputation. The skirmishes throughout Quazzal while the Emperor reunited with the primarch of the Seventh didn't exactly do so.

Though perhaps that was precisely the Emperor's test.

Whatever the case, soon enough Rathvin was atop the _Sixth Retribution_ once more, studying the star charts for their next destination. A direct beeline to the Mandeville Point, a short Warp transit - it didn't seem to difficult at all. Just another step into the unknown. And, most likely, another disappointment.

"Legion Master Rathvin," said a Custode, coming up behind him - no, more than a Custode. This was Constantin Valdor, one of the Custodian Guard's labyrinthine leadership and among the Emperor's closest confidants. Rathvin turned and nodded in recognition. "I feel you ought to be warned right away - the next world's going to be another disappointment for you and your Legion."

"The Emperor can sense that?"

"The Emperor can sense the presence of his gene-sons." Valdor seemed less than happy to say that - envy, perhaps? The Custodes were known to think of themselves as the Emperor's children themselves, after all.

Rathvin grunted. "Excellent news for the Imperium, then. But frankly, I'm not sure why the Emperor took us with the First Expeditionary Fleet. We haven't found anything that needs Astartes to fight."

"Do you think the Imperial Army could've taken Tranzentan?"

"Yes, though with substantive casualties," Rathvin acknowledged. "But they weren't alone. The Emperor himself, and the Custodes..."

"If the Emperor and Custodes could conquer the galaxy on their own," Valdor pointed out, "the Astartes would never have been created."

Rathvin held his tongue from pointing out that just because they were needed somewhere didn't mean they were needed _here_. Crusading alongside the Emperor was an honor, after all. But it was feeling more and more like a leash - oversight to make sure the Sixth didn't go too far, at the cost of keeping them from battlefields where they were truly needed.

No, he was being unreasonable. The Imperium was more important. He thanked Valdor, and went back to organizing preparations for Warp transit.

The transit went flawlessly, of course. Navigator Belkrar's competence was unquestionable - else Rathvin would doubtlessly have questioned it. Soon enough, the First Expeditionary Fleet emerged in a system that, for once, Rathvin recognized, if only from legend.

A violet supergiant sun cast waves of harsh radiation across the system. Around it were scattered several worlds, littered with the ruins of void ships. The fourth world in the system alone was inhabited by humans. Under a ring of orbital stations, a dense and opaque atmosphere with great winds, mined for countless generations yet remaining a treasure trove of both raw materials and archaeotechnology, human and xeno...

This was a world the Martian Mechanicum had searched a thousand years for.

This was the Sthelenus System.

This was Medusa.

And here, the Emperor of Mankind would meet the fourth-found of the primarchs.


	68. 2-46: Rakissen 1

The moment of his landing split a mountain apart.

The boy could feel it, safe within the confines of his pod. As he crawled out of it, having come to a rest, he saw the crumbled pinnacle of black ice, spreading out onto the plain below. Above was darkness, yet the darkness below was somehow greater, even terrifying.

The boy did not feel fear, certainly not of the darkness. He felt the pod - the numeral XIII, engraved on a pristine surface. The world around him was coming into focus.

He processed it near-instantaneously, as he walked down the slope. A pod, a slope, a monster.

The moment of his landing had split a mountain apart, and released whatever was beneath.

It was a serpentine thing, reflective metal lit only by hungry green eyes. It reared upward, and with every motion another piece of the mountain came off. The boy knew, as he clambered downslope, with both hearts just how much of a threat this thing posed. Every curve of its body spoke of something deliberately engineered to cause damage, yet now its movements seemed to be uncontrolled entirely. Uncontrollable, he judged. Otherwise, this rogue weapon would not have been imprisoned, but harnessed or else destroyed.

He took in the rest of the information around him, too. Heavy ultraviolet radiation despite the unceasing smoggy clouds - a world distantly orbiting an unkind star. The wind that sought to knock him down - a thick atmosphere, though either for him nor for the wurm it would be no more than an inconvenience. The terrain was young, implying a tectonically active - likely hyperactive - world.

That he knew this already meant he had himself been created, with knowledge implanted into him, or else learned these sciences in a past he had for whatever reason forgotten.

He climbed down, feeling the dusty wind beside him and the sharp ice and rocks below. Picking up a particularly sharp-edged fragment of something like obsidian, he fashioned something resembling a dagger out of it - crude, but the best he could manage without tools. That achieved, he hollered, trying to get the wurm's attention. In that, he failed; it was still trying to take apart the walls of its prison, perhaps in programmed fury, perhaps from a more direct bug.

But the boy could not leave it there; that much was certain. The plan he concocted was a foolhardy one, perhaps, but he was responsible for releasing it, and he would be the one to end it, one way or another.

He ran between meter-sized shard of ice, which were flying through the air like overgrown hailstones. He took into account the motions of the wurm, identifying a likely blind spot. The serpent thrashed again, and finally left the crumbling mountain behind already, but the boy was there to meet it. He slid underneath its bulk, feeling the metal grind him against the sharp rock below, digging grooves into his back, and drove the dagger in as hard as he could into a joint.

The dagger crumpled in his hands. He attempted to wedge his hands into the gap, pry it apart somehow, but that too failed. The wurm finally noticed him, tossing him into the air, curving above a dark mountain.

As he flew, the boy saw the wurm slink off on its way, discounting him as a threat, perhaps even leaving him for dead. But he was not dead. Wounded, yes, but he instinctively knew he would heal. For now, he decided, he would walk in another direction, and seek to find other people to deal with, to learn and grow and prepare. He was no match for this monstrosity, not yet, but he would find a way to bring it down, no matter how long it took.

It would regret leaving him alive.


	69. 2-47: Anhazthe 1

The day the stranger came to the crawler of Clan Avernii was a stormy one. Anhazthe looked out of the crawler's thin windows in terror at the rage of the skies above. The rain fell not in an intermittent drizzle, as it normally did, but in a steady downpour, and the gusts were enough to almost tip the entire crawler over.

"You're afraid," her mother said as she came up to her.

"I am," Anhazthe said, turning. "What if the crawler gets knocked over?"

"Then we'll either get it running again, or all die. There is no use in fear."

"Fear is weakness," the girl acknowledged, in principle resolving to correct that weakness even if privately she doubted she ever could, but continued to look through the slit at the storm. Then she blinked as she saw something she hadn't expected. "Mother, there's a man there."

"Impossible."

But it wasn't. The man - the boy, even - struggled through the wind and mud, but walked ever forward, moving towards the Avernii clan-crawler. Anhazthe couldn't recognize him, and neither could the adults. "He came from the north," Iron Father Dusor pointed out. "From the Land of Shadows. Perhaps he's a spirit."

"He's not," said Anhazthe's father with a sigh. "He's just a fool who got lost in the storm."

"He's not a fool," Anhazthe insisted, not sure why she found the need to step to the stranger's defense. "He's - " she struggled to come up with an argument - "strong enough to survive in the storm, so there!"

That caused some uproar, and soon after the adults started arguing among themselves, sometimes with threats of violence, and kicked Anhazthe out. "You spoke wisely," her father pointed out. "Dusor will recognize that, tomorrow."

"The grown-ups just didn't like that you were smarter than them," Arsama opined when Anhazthe found her. "They're petty like that."

Anhazthe thought Arsama was probably right about this, but she shook her head when Arsama suggested taking the stranger as a slave. "If he's strong enough to be out in the storm," she said, "he could take _us_ as slaves."

"Not the entire clan."

"Well, maybe not. I don't know. But I don't think the adults will want to fight him." Or maybe she only hoped that they wouldn't.

As it happened, the stranger simply came up to the gates of the crawler and waited. After some consultation, as Anhazthe watched from far above, the doors slid open and the boy walked in. He was oddly proportioned, but walked with confidence, blond hair hanging down in wet clumps.

"Who are you?" Patriarch Saanos asked, wielding a spear. "Where are you from?" The men behind him held weapons of their own, forming a circle around the stranger.

"I don't remember," the stranger said, extending his hands in a gesture of submission. But when Saanos experimentally poked his spear towards the boy, he responded by grabbing onto it and, in an instant, snapping the steel weapon in half.

The circle drew back. Anhazthe drew in a breath, amazed at the display - but more amazed at the curious nonchalance the stranger was showing. He didn't seem either intimidated or angry at the elite of Clan Avernii surrounding him. Instead, he was letting Saanos make the next move.

"You... don't remember?" the patriarch asked.

"I landed to the north of here," the stranger said, "twenty-nine days ago. Before then, I remember nothing." He looked around. "This is stupid. There is no reason for us to fight." He said it as an obvious truth, in the way Anhazthe's parents sometimes talked to her of the truths of life.

"You are not of the clan," Saanos said.

"He is of no clan," Anhazthe's father said, stepping forward. "Therefore, Saanos, he can be joined to the clan."

"And what has he done to deserve it?" Dusor asked. Anhazthe's father simply pointed to the storm outside, which even now, with the gate closed, was still blowing the dust of the entryway around. Dusor stood up like he was going to fight then and there, but backed down after the patriarch cast him a glare.

Saanos scratched his beard. "Perhaps. Will you be joined to Clan Avernii, stranger?"

"What would that entail?"

Saanos enumerated the responsibilities - above all, the responsibility to not drag the clan down by consuming more than one produced, at least as an adult. The stranger thought for only an instant before accepting.

The ceremony took place soon after. Symbolic chains were tied around his wrist, and he was bound to the Avernii gear. "I name you Rakissen, child of the wastes," Saanos said, "With this link, I bind you to my clan."

"By your iron, I am bound," the stranger casually replied, as he had been instructed to. One by one, the adults of Clan Avernii stepped forth and added links to the chain, and only after they were all done, the litany complete, did he stand up and tie the chain around himself.

After that, he was finally released to be with the other children, though not without his duties being recited to him. He absorbed them thoughtfully, his curiosity growing increasingly contemplative.

"It's pointless," he complained, to them. "An initiation ritual, yes, but they talk about it as if it was more than that."

"It's a great honor," Antama pointed out. "I thought they'd make you a slave."

Rakissen shrugged. "I guess," he said, "that I expected something... more... from meeting people for the first time."

"The first time?"

"So far as I remember." Rakissen considered his words. "They were all hostile towards me, and that is understandable, for I was a stranger. But they also seemed hostile towards each other."

"That's strength," Errayn put in. "They're monitoring each other for signs of weakness. They say Dusor will mount a challenge to Saanos's position soon, but there's other people too who might do that."

"It's inefficient," Rakissen said.

"How else would we weed out the weak?"

Rakissen silently got up and walked to the edge of the crawler, beckoning the other children after him. The storm had stopped. Before them, a muddy expanse stretched, gradually drying. "That ruin," Rakissen said, pointing, "was a crawler once. Those corpses - " even Anhazthe couldn't see them, but she didn't even think of doubting Rakissen - "are the site of a battle fought sometime in the past year. And that's a herd of animals - I don't know what they're called, but they can eat a human in seconds, and will."

"What's your point?" Antama asked impatiently.

"My point," Rakissen said, "is that, given the ease with which this world could kill us all, I can't see why you're spending time on paranoia about individual weakness."

"The clan is a chain," Errayn recited. "It is only as strong as its weakest link."

"The clan is not a chain," Rakissen insisted. "Or, at least, it doesn't have to be." He stepped back from the window and turned to the crowd of children, clenching his fists. "And I will prove it."


	70. 2-48: Rakissen 2

Rakissen grew quickly on the Avernii clan-crawler. He always performed his duties, and sometimes overperformed them, which led to muttering from the adults that he was an idiot. But the truth was, he enjoyed helping Anhazthe and Arrsiw and Sonwam and the other children, and even if the adults complained that he was making them weak, their friendship was worth it.

The truth was, he knew, on an instinctive level, that the adults - and especially Iron Father Dusor - were wrong. If individual strength was all that mattered, after all, as it was in a chain, the clans would never have formed in the first place. He thought, perhaps, of layers of plate on a crawler. They were placed differently, and one plate could be torn off without too much damage, but in the main, even a weak plate was better than no plate when the storms came. When Gadinalb had challenged Saanos for leadership and won, the former patriarch had been pressured to hike off into the wasteland and die there, even though he was not yet so old as to truly be a drain on resources, and could still offer wisdom to the clan. When Dirgoknth had broken his leg, he had been left behind, even though the injury could be fixed so that it would heal, eventually. These were all decisions that benefited the Avernii in the short term, perhaps, but they also led to everyone always looking behind themselves, fearing a mistake and therefore not cooperating. And because of this, Medusa as a whole could never move forward.

Dusor, who maintained the technology of the Avernii, disagreed; and as Rakissen rapidly grew, as he began to be considered an adult, their rift grew increasingly difficult. For Rakissen's talent was undeniable, and most of the clan members put up with his strange views for how much he could provide to them; but Dusor saw him as a threat. Perhaps that was, in part, because Rakissen would sometimes try to figure out the mechanisms of the crawler, while ignoring the bulk of the Iron Fathers' dogma, to say nothing of their sole control on technology. As far as Rakissen was concerned, though, he had an aptitude for the mechanical, and if Dusor had wanted to induct him as an Iron Father he could have.

But as more of the adults listened to him, as the children almost worshiped him, Rakissen saw those who disliked him grow to hate him. He did not let that bother him, at first. Let them hate; he knew, already, that he was something more than simply human, that he would outstrip their anger.

The day that changed, Anhazthe had followed him into the guts of the crawler, and they were discussing the various connections - without, of course, interfering in their function. Anhazthe was fascinated, and Rakissen felt happy to have someone to bounce ideas off, and he was so distracted that he barely noticed when something clicked.

He did notice, though. He did notice, and rolled out of the way with Anhazthe, a split second before the engine dropped - completely, blatantly out of turn - and tore the back of his cloak off.

He had no proof that Dusor had done it, had tried to kill them both; but it was obvious enough, for he knew the motion was no accident. If it had only been him, perhaps he would have waited.

It was not only him. It would not, in the future, be only him. Perhaps it would be Sonwam next time, or Antama, or even one of the adults - but he could not protect them all, not like this.

And so he went to find Dusor, and kill him.

Because those years had taught him much, about life on Medusa. Among those things was war. They had raided and been raided, and Rakissen had fought as one of Clan Avernii, and taken lives because there was no other way. He was skilled enough and strong enough that he had no doubt that he could defeat Dusor in single combat, despite his youth.

But another thing that those years had taught him was ruthlessness. He could challenge Dusor to ceremonial combat, but Dusor would refuse, and people would support him because the clan needed an Iron Father. True, Rakissen was fairly certain he could perform those duties, but fairly certain was not certain.

And so he did not challenge Dusor. Instead, he slipped poison into the Iron Father's food the next evening, and the morning after that Dusor did not wake. Of course, Dusor had been plenty paranoid about such things, always taking his food in his workshop alone - but he took it at the same time each day, and so when Rakissen disrupted that schedule by causing a small accident, he was able to drop a couple specks of bena powder into Dusor's personal grinder. Few enough not to risk contamination of the clan as a whole, but enough to ensure the Iron Father's death.

But while bena powder was the most appropriate poison for the situation, among those that Rakissen could gather on short notice, it was not particularly inconspicuous; and so Gadinalb recognized quickly that Dusor had been murdered. "Rakissen!" he thundered. "We have let you into our clan, and now you have murdered our Iron Father."

"I did not," Rakissen protested.

"Then it was one of the simpering fools you've made our children into," Gadinalb said. "You have betrayed Clan Avernii either way. The sentence is exile."

"Is it?" Rakissen asked, looking around the crowd of clansmen and slaves - some smirking, some outraged, many merely confused. As many supported him as opposed him. "I am stronger than you, Gadinalb. You cannot force me from the clan."

"You are stronger than any one man," Gadinalb admitted. "But you are not stronger than the clan, nor more important."

"So you refuse ceremonial combat."

"If you would fight all your accusers at once, then I will be among them." There was a cheer at that.

"So be it," Rakissen said, "so long as my defenders will fight alongside me. Fair is fair, after all." Rakissen suspected he could have beaten all his accusers at once. Yet such a victory would have been meaningless, a reaffirmation of solitary strength, which he had plenty of.

"Fair is fair," Gadinalb acknowledged. "But then, we shall both stand aside, and not take part in the conflict, for you stand accused of a grave crime, and I am obliged to some neutrality. Thus I decree as patriarch."

"Fine," Rakissen said, stunned at Gadinalb's uncharacteristic cunning but already in the process of coming up with a new plan; and then the canvassing began. They both walked around the crowd, picking out men and women and appealing to them from personal memories. Only adults would participate, it was rapidly agreed; but it soon became evident that every adult in Clan Avernii would fight, for as more and more declared their allegiance those that did not began to seem like cowards. It was not a battle to the death, but everyone knew that many of them would not survive it.

Rakissen's force was only half as big as Gadinalb's. While some among it were noted warriors, such as Zenaqbaf, most of the greatest fighters of the clan stood by Gadinalb's side. The faces were grim as Rakissen came up to them - but not hopeless.

Gadinalb was riling his warriors up; Rakissen's speech was more measured. He instructed all of his supporters to pick up a shield, and stand side-by-side, protecting each other with spears sticking out of the gaps. "And what if our neighbor drops their shield?" Ddunos challenged.

"They won't," Rakissen assured him.

Then he stepped aside, and walked back to the crawler, leaving Zenaqbaf in charge. Gadinalb rang the gong, and the ceremonial combat began.

Gadinalb's men charged one by one, and one by one they fell - some by archers' shots, others, upon reaching the wall of shields, at the tip of a spear. Rakissen had prescribed his people's positions so that the weakest of them had the most support, and so the line held, and held easily, with Gadinalb's warriors retreating out of range and trying to goad them from afar.

Eventually, Gadinalb came up to the crawler. "Let's cease this farce, Rakissen," he said. "Zenaqbaf and the rest can't reach us, and we can't reach them. Tell them to fight it out like warriors."

As he did so, dozens of bows and more arcane projectile weapons emerged from the slits in the crawler.

Some of them were held by the children. Others were held by the slaves, which Rakissen had talked to and promised freedom in the case of his victory. Slave uprisings were rare because of the doctrine that the weak deserved their fate, and also because they always splintered; but Rakissen had found a way to give hope to the hopeless.

Rakissen pushed aside a retractable platform to stand on a balcony, two stories above Gadinalb. He hadn't meant to take over the clan, but somehow his sequence of desperate improvisations had led him here.

"Choose," he said. "Slavery, or death."

Gadinalb grit his teeth, but looking between the enemy to his back and the enemy before him, sighed and named the former.


	71. 2-49: Anhazthe 2

Clans had to be reforged, sometimes. Anhazthe's mother had always said that, and her father, unusually, had agreed. Sometimes a structure grew too insular, or too mindless, or (and this was derided most of all) too soft.

But as she looked around the men, women, and children of Clan Avernii, gathered in the wake of the battle for leadership, she was not sure Medusa had ever seen _such_ a reforging. Gadinalb and a good third of those that followed him, who Rakissen's measured eye had identified as his staunchest supporters, wore slave collars. Anhazthe's mother had almost been among them.

Anhazthe had held her in the scope of her ziblaster, during the battle. If Gadinalb had tried to fight to the end, if Clan Avernii had been sundered wholesale, she would've had to make herself kill her childhood first of all. Instead, though her hand had not twitched in that moment, Rakissen had - after some consideration - chosen to pardon her. Anhazthe's father would have fought for Rakissen, she liked to think, had he still been alive to do so.

"Now," Rakissen said, "as to our rule. I have taken for myself Gadinalb's mantle as Patriarch, as well as Dusor's of Iron Father. But any patriarch must have advisors and students. Zenaqbaf!" The tall warrior stepped forward. "I name you War Commander of Clan Avernii. In all things martial, when I am not on the battlefield, you shall have final authority."

There was some muttering - this, evidently, was not normal.

"Verra!" The old, but energetic, woman walked forward. "I name you Hearth Commander of Clan Avernii. In the domestic matters of the clan crawler, when I am not present, you shall have final authority. Laangavarife!" The young huntress stepped forward, her beautiful hair waving in the wind. "I name you Hunt Commander of Clan Avernii. In all matters of resource collection, if I am not available, you shall have final authority." Rakissen nodded before continuing. The wind was picking up around them, but the people of Clan Avernii were transfixed, and Rakissen's voice was as clear as if they were underground. "Anhazthe!"

Anhazthe stepped forward, unsure what Rakissen wanted her for. She was not even an adult, after all, in the eyes of the clan. But Rakissen continued. "I name you Iron Commander of Clan Avernii. You will be my apprentice in the ways of the machine, and final authority over all the technology of the clan will be yours, save when mine precedes it."

"She is still a child," Verra protested.

And that was true, and Anhazthe being a girl meant the Iron Fathers would never accept her - but still, she could not back down. "I still know more about those workings than anyone of the clan save Rakissen," she said, carefully staying silent on just how little that really was. Dusor had, of course, known far more; but he had never taken an apprentice.

"She is an adult in the eyes of the clan," Rakissen said, "from this day forwards. As are all those children that stood to protect the crawler."

"In the eyes of the clan?" Gadinalb asked defiantly. "Or in your eyes?"

"You may not have kept track of all the clan's eyes," Rakissen answered, "but I am not so blind. From this day forth, I am the Ultimate Commander of Clan Avernii! Before this day, you have fought - no, you have _lived_ for yourself. The clan was a union of the individually strong, who sought individual, petty goals. You pursued strength, and in that pursuit refused to help each other up when you fell. So it is on all of Medusa - but not in Clan Avernii. Not anymore!

"We are not as strong as our weakest link. If we were, there would be no point gathering in clans. Strength comes from working as one, from fighting side-by-side, from plotting together. Strength is unity! The personal strength the Iron Fathers seek is as nothing compared to the power of a clan united in purpose.

"But if a clan must have a single will, then someone must define that will." The wind was ruffling Anhazthe's sleeves, she noted absentmindedly, but her focus was still on Rakissen's speech. "And who among you would deny that I am best-suited to do so? Who would dispute my right to leadership?" Silence, save for the wind. Rakissen softened his voice. "Do not be afraid to question my decisions. My mistakes are rare, but I've made more than a few; my skills are many, but I cannot be an expert in every calling. But in the end, I am the Ultimate Commander! Question my methods, but never my ends. Question my thoughts, but never my will. And so long as you do this, we together will bring Clan Avernii to heights unheard-of, to glory, prosperity, and learning like nothing Medusa has ever seen!"

They cheered. They cheered even despite the coming dust storm, even despite the knowledge that Rakissen was demanding greater obedience than any patriarch in the clan's history. Absolute rule -

But not unconstrained rule. Rakissen set down rules for the clan, but also rules for himself, in the weeks that followed. These were oaths he took, with the general thrust of always working, as Ultimate Commander, for the clan rather than for his own benefit. He kept his quarters undecorated, save with the machines he built, and barely large enough for his superhuman size. There seemed to be some unsaid regret in his eyes, at times, though Anhazthe did not think anyone else saw it.

He spent time with Anhazthe, too, teaching her of the clan-crawler's machinery. Soon enough, she was able to contact Clan Felg for herself, to negotiate a coming intersection of their paths. Clan Felg's Iron Father was somewhat shocked to learn of the changes in Clan Avernii's leadership, but - perhaps due to thinking Rakissen's negotiating position weak - agreed to make the encounter one of trade rather than war.

The bargains (not to say scams) that Rakissen and Laangavarife pulled off, at that meeting, were something else, to the point of making it necessary to expand the clan-crawler itself - Anhazthe's first great project. Sonwam and Antama helped her on it, sketching the rooms and hallways, and before she knew it their looks turned into kisses, and Anhazthe looked at herself and saw a woman, rather than a girl promoted before her time, and the clan too began to listen to her words. Not all - her mother still called her a foolish girl, the rare times that they talked. But Anhazthe did not let that bother her, not anymore.

Thus the years flipped by. Clan Avernii prospered, as Rakissen had promised, both migrants and slaves joining its expanding clan-crawler, wonders stolen and traded and forged within it. The Ultimate Commander became known as Rakissen Legis, for his organization of clan life into professional pillars and columns under the four Commanders. The structure seemed bewilderingly intricate to Anhazthe most of the time, but when Rakissen explained it it became breathtakingly elegant, in his words and his words alone. Rigid roles, though never so constrained as to cause boredom. A clan was a machine in itself, in a sense, but one composed of humans; and Rakissen was firm on that last aspect. "Even slaves require some joy in life," he said, "for anything that a human being worked to death can do, a machine can generally do better."

Anhazthe searched for ancient technology in ruins and caverns, and kept the clan's machines running, for by now there was far too much else for the Ultimate Commander to do; and she built new machines, sometimes in collaboration with the Iron Fathers of other clans, which accepted her into their fraternity grudgingly - but then, they did everything grudgingly. But they too were human, and one night in the Clan Ungavarr crawler, Anhazthe did find love, if briefly. Then again, all things were brief. Life, too - Varra held on for far longer than anyone had expected, but one morning she woke up with the end in her eyes and walked off into the desert. Rakissen named Arrsiw as Hearth Commander, in her place. "I have no idea how Varra managed it all," he said to Anhazthe. "The only good news is that we're not anywhere near a slave revolt, as I'd feared. Turns out Gadinalb was trying to agitate before he got knifed, but - well, they'd rather be well-fed in chains than starving and free."

Truthfully, Anhazthe sometimes thought, the lot of the slaves wasn't that different from the rest of them. Even Rakissen Legis had the chains binding him to Clan Avernii tied around his wrists. A symbolic gesture, but an essential one. The other clans weren't as terrifying and hostile as Anhazthe's parents had taught her, but in all their diversity, one thing was held in common - none of them had learned Rakissen Legis's lesson of unity. None of them fought, or recruited, or hunted as one, not when it required individual sacrifice. And none of them had Rakissen Legis leading them either, and that mattered.

In her proudest moments, looking at what she had had a part in creating, Anhazthe thought Clan Avernii could take on the rest of Medusa all at once.

But no one could have predicted the storm that would come with the Iron Moon.


	72. 2-50: Rakissen 3

The Iron Moon had arrived.

The clans of Medusa gathered as one in the foothills of the Felgarrthi Mountains, for the only time in their wanderings. Gathered peacefully - for though they were all, in their ways, proud, they were not suicidal. When to stray outside the protective fields of Felgarrthi was death, wars within those fields were unheard-of.

That was not to say there wasn't violence. As the Avernii clan-crawler rumbled into position below the gigantic faces of the ten original patriarchs of Medusa, Rakissen looked down to see an honor duel between two representatives of minor clans. There would be assaults, too, and murders, not only between clans but within them due to the ease of deflecting blame (and Rakissen thought again, with a wince, of his own first murder, for though Dusor had deserved worse than death, he would have preferred for his rise to power to be more... truthful). War was unacceptable during the Iron Moon, for the precedent it would have set, but the clans were never truly quiescent, no more so than the world itself.

Sthelenus was dimly visible behind the clouds, and below them, the Avernii approached the bazaar. Laangavarife had already run ahead to the grand bazaar - there was a certain oil the crawler desperately needed, which had to be acquired without bankrupting the clan. It was the sort of issue Rakissen wanted to apply his concentration to, but he could not.

The Iron Moon had arrived, his first chance to speak to all the clans of Medusa at once. His first, and perhaps only, chance to weld them into a coherent whole. Clan Avernii had grown, grown to become the greatest clan of all Medusa, but it was still only one clan.

It would be in the bonds between clans that a true future could be found.

And so Rakissen Legis sat, looking down on the terrain the crawler passed by, and typed, on the relic cogitator Anhazthe had found in the Thigarda Caverns and integrated into his command center, his plans for the words he would say. Words designed to provoke his enemies, and kindle the flame of understanding among those who could become his allies.

"Ultimate Commander?" Arrsiw's voice came. "Clan Finarr has sent their grievances over the radio. They demand a duel of champions."

"They can name any champion they want to fight me," Rakissen said with a sigh. Really, when would they learn? "But later. I think I've chewed my own words enough - let's see what the Felgarrthis are like today."

Some of the clan members were dispatched into the throngs in disguise, to learn how Clan Avernii was thought of behind its back. But for the most part, no one was afraid to say their opinion even to Rakissen's face - Clan Avernii was recognized as powerful (though, perhaps, without a quantitative understanding of that power) but eccentric. All the same, the former was in the minds of all more important than the latter.

That almost made Rakissen reconsider his plans. Could he gather the clans peacefully, he wondered? Lead by example, rather than by force?

And the answer came - yes, but only for a time. Gadinalb'd had to be broken, and even then he still apparently planned a resistance. History not written in blood had a tendency to be forgotten.

And so Rakissen sent out heralds, and bid all the clan patriarchs and matriarchs, all the Iron Fathers, and everyone else who wished to gawk, to gather in the amphitheater that evening, for he had much to say.

It was a still day, unusually so. Not a leaf, not a stalk of grass rustled. The warm air merely hung around them, like a quilt. The quietest whispers of the audience were audible, and Rakissen even considered laying down his megaphone, for he knew he could be heard without it. The rock-benches were full to bursting, and yet for all of it the atmosphere was quiet. Perhaps it was oppressed by the silence of the wind, or perhaps it was the trepidation before what was to come.

Medusa itself had stopped to hear his words.

And at the peak of the Iron Moon, as the planet writhed under tidal stresses, Rakissen Legis stood in the center of silence and cast his gauntlet. "I have only this to say," he told the clans in whose midst he stood. "Disunity is weakness. Selfishness is weakness. Only together are we strong. All of you, who are not of Clan Avernii, have allowed pursuit of individual might to blind you to collective perfection." He spoke of war and of peace, of monsters and of famine, of the glories of Medusa's past which the archaeotech confirmed without doubt and the slow decline of society under the unforgiving gaze of Sthelenus, these past millennia.

And, at the end, he said the only words that would convince the clans that his ideas were worth listening to.

"If you do not believe me," he said, "then come forth after the Iron Moon, and try to take Clan Avernii's riches for your own. You will never succeed, no more so than the hundred raids we have turned back during my reign. And if you have wits enough to not cast yourself onto our spears, then you already understand, if not yet consciously, that I am right, and tradition is wrong."

"I hope you realize," Zenaqbaf warned him afterwards, "that you've declared war on all of Medusa."

"Half at most," Rakissen answered with a smile. "Half at most, War Commander." And though victory would be far from easy, it was only right that this was how all would be decided.

His victory would not be left to crime and luck. Not this time.


	73. 2-51: Gabriel 1

Around the crawler of Clan Avernii, the distant thunder was blotted out by artillery fire.

Gabriel Santar peeked through the slit between plates, where a sliver of window had been installed. He was too young to fight, still, and so he had been holed up with the other children in the most protected region of the crawler. But it wasn't as if Rifusanta could actually keep track of them all alone, and everyone that could fight was in some sense doing so, and so he'd rapidly made his escape to look at the battle.

It was hard to tell what was going on, of course. The enemy clans had gathered in a giant ring, and had found some huge archaeotech to try and help them break into the Avernii clan-crawler. But it wasn't working, probably because Rakissen and Anhazthe were so awesome.

He couldn't see anything, anyhow, so he tried to find a bigger window when he heard the sound of adults arguing, and quickly crept closer to the shouting.

"We can't sally!" Arrsiw was saying. "They'd slaughter us!"

"I don't think they would." That was the voice of Rakissen himself. "Those weapons won't be precise enough to hit any one warrior. We'd take losses, but if we could capture the cannons..."

"The siege would be broken," Zenaqbaf said. Gabriel could imagine the scarred War Commander standing there, with the completely terrifying look in his eyes Gabriel had been on the wrong end of a couple times. "Just give the order, Ultimate Commander, and I'll have them attached to the clan-crawler within an hour."

"Perhaps," Rakissen acknowledged. "But you will have command on the crawler in that time. I will lead the attack myself." And then, before anyone could reply, a sharp intake of breath. "Someone's listening in."

Gabriel froze, for an instant, trying to think about how he'd explain it when he got caught, about how unfair it that he wasn't getting to contribute to the war yet, when the floor crumbled beneath him and he found himself clasped in a massive, armored arm.

Zenaqbaf laughed. Everyone was smiling, even as Gabriel turned red with embarassment.

"Well," Rakissen said, "in my defense, this could've been serious. Weren't Rifusanta and Rani supposed to be watching you, Gabriel?"

Gabriel explained about Rani's urgent business and Rifusanta's inability to keep track of them all. "Of course," Arrsiw said, bringing his palm to his forehead. "Of course they all ran off. Just what we needed."

"If any of them venture outside," Laangavarife said, "then I say the clan's better off without their stupidity, unity or no."

"It's not that easy to get out, at the moment," Anhazthe put in.

Rakissen stood up, almost scratching the ceiling. "Before you ask, Gabriel, no, you can't fight. You can watch from the bridge, under adult supervision. Understand? The clan needs you alive in the future, not dead now."

Gabriel understood. He wasn't too happy about it, but he knew that Rakissen knew better than anyone what Clan Avernii needed. So he stood with Zenaqbaf, who chained his arm to a cogitator just to make sure, and watched the attack.

Rakkisen Legis led them, the spear he had forged himself in his hands. The enemy knew they were coming - if nothing else, from the barrage the crawler's guns had unleashed on the enemy cannons beforehand - and Gabriel saw mad Stanislas's automatons form a line in front of those emplacements. The robots were twice as tall as a human, on average, and fought much better too. The charge almost faltered even before impact, Avernii pulling each other from the dirt, and then the ford, wading through -

Less than half the Avernii soldiers reached the enemy. But that enemy, too, was dazed from the supporting fire, their lines broken, and when Rakissen was among them they began to run, all but Stanislas's robots. Those, at least, fought to the end, but it was nowhere near enough. Rakissen was like a ghost, carving emptiness behind him, and the rest of the Avernii had linked up behind him, and soon Rakissen was standing atop one of the two great archaeotech 'cannons', directing the hauling of the other back to the crawler.

There was one last attempt to dislodge the Avernii. "That's Stanislas himself," Zenaqbaf noted, even as he frantically called in fire elsewhere. But by now Rakissen had control of the great machines he'd set out to capture, and that meant the battle was over, because - as best as Gabriel understood - the besieging clans had nothing else that could pierce through the walls. Gabriel thought he saw the moment when Rakissen pierced Stanislas's head, and the mad Iron Father's engines went silent. He couldn't be sure, of course. But by that point it didn't matter, as the rest of their besiegers were turning on one another, settling old accounts or defecting to Rakissen's side.

"So," Zenaqbaf said when he met up with the Ultimate Commander again, afterward. "All our enemies accounted for now?"

"All but two," Rakissen Legis said. "Clan Sorrgol retreated in good order. We'll have to hunt them down."

But by that point, Gabriel was looking in awe at the twenty-four clan-crawlers arranged in formation around the base of Clan Avernii, and feeling like nothing was impossible.


	74. 2-52: Rakissen 4

Over the years, Rakissen Legis had twice led hunts for the wurm he had released in the moment of his arrival. Neither had found anything. And perhaps, he had thought, perhaps it was simply gone, perhaps it had hidden in the quiet places of the world and fled from the wrath of Medusa's people.

The day that his hopes were revealed for the delusion they were -

No, not a day. That was part of the problem. It was a moonless night, heavy smog clogging the sky, and the main tongue of the confederation was threading its way between the Ahaggab Pinnacles, which stood like a crowd of people in a lifeless field. Visibility was near-zero, and Clan Clotho's crawler had even collided with one of the pinnacles. Below them, islands' worth of unmapped caverns stretched, filled with archaeotech; once they had been mines, before that catacombs, and even Rakissen could not tell what they had been in their first excavation, hundreds of thousands of Medusan years ago. They were home to many marvels, and Rakissen had every intent of salvaging some of them.

Contact with the Vurgaan clan-crawler was lost first. Anhazthe said it was likely a consequence of the interference in the atmosphere. This was an understandable mistake. But when contact with Clan Atropos's crawler was also lost, Anhazthe noted her alarm. "Atropos have one of the newest radio systems in the armada," she pointed out. "If even they can't get a message through, either the smog's completely impenetrable, or we're under attack."

"No clans registered within a day's travel," Zenaqbaf said. "Wild animals? They shouldn't be able to get through the defenses."

"The crawlers would have covered each other," Anhazthe said. "But I would still call a halt."

Rakissen slammed his fist upon the table, aborting the impact at the last moment so as not to break it. "They _wouldn't_ have," he realized. "They're still too new to unity. But... but we can't afford a false alarm, either. Send out a signal to halt, and to be on high alert."

Anhazthe nodded and went to do so, or maybe to tell Usopok to - which it was, Rakissen didn't have the chance to find out, because the clan-crawler lurched, power went out, and the alarm sounded at last.

It took too long. Too long to grab his spear and garb his armor, too long to recognize where the incursion was. His mind was dulled by the monotony of the shadowed advance, perhaps, but above all he took too long to consider the possibility -

Only when he saw the silver wurm did he realize. Only when the serpent reared above him did he recognize, in a moment of clarity, the depth of his error.

How it had evaded every sensor was a worry for later. For now, Rakissen leveled his spear and charged, trying to wrestle the serpent away from Clan Avernii. Trying to drive it into the desert. But he was not strong enough, not in this moment. The wurm curled, destroying priceless archaeotech with every thump of its tail.

He was not strong enough. Clan Avernii was not strong enough. For a moment Rakissen dared hope that the other clans would come to their aid, for surely Usopok had called for it, but that was not so. He could even see, just barely in his peripheral vision, as the crawlers of Clotho, and then Jlaanisiw, and then others began to creep away. Leaving them for dead - leaving Avernii for dead.

And that stoked Rakissen's rage, higher and higher. Because they weren't dead yet. _He_ wasn't dead yet.

The clan-crawler was destroyed, and every time Rakissen's spear struck at the wurm it was turned back. The fusilades the Avernii shot into the monster's side grew weaker and further between. But Rakissen fought on, suffering bruises and cuts but just barely fast enough to evade death. And at some point an explosion went off, and Rakissen, no longer with any focus to spare on anything except the battle, adrenaline and stronger things thundering in his veins, forced himself and the serpent forward, then right, and into the great gap that had opened up.

Into the caverns of Ahaggab.

And he began to feel alive, once more, his rage for once not silencing his reason. He took note of the monster's every motion, of each twitch, and began to make a mental map. The engine twisted again and again, away from his hands' blows - it could not be pierced, but it could be grappled. Its antennae were possible to smash off, with enough strength, though the liquid metal seemed to flow into any wounds to its carapace. It hissed, seemingly a taunt, in a language Rakissen didn't know.

It hissed... a name, perhaps. 'Asirnoth'.

As good a name as any. Rakissen attached the label to the enemy. This was Asirnoth, Rakissen's first-ever foe, which he had released when he had released upon his landing in the Land of Shadows. It was a mindless engine of destruction that had smothered everything he had tried to build. It was seemingly invulnerable, whereas Rakissen was vulnerable indeed - he felt his wounds, more than he had suffered in a lifetime of war. Victory was impossible. Probabilistically, he had no chance to win this battle.

But Rakissen forced his mind to stop thinking about retreat, and to seek any means of triumph, no matter how remote.

Asirnoth's armor could not be pierced, but it could be penetrated by other effects. Temperature, perhaps, but there was no volcano conveniently nearby. Pressure would have an effect, but how high was this thing's resistance? Chemistry - something sufficiently corrosive - perhaps that even existed in these time-lost ruins, but how was he to find it? Blinding it was nice in principle, but its sensors were surely within its body.

They traded blows, again and again, navigating through the ruins. Rakissen healed quickly, but even so he was sustaining more blows than he could endure. His head was ringing, but he forced himself to keep going.

Vengeance, over all.

He was sufficiently engaged that breaking off could win him a few minutes. What would be easy to find? Not many things were active here. Electric shock seemed to have no effect. Put enough power in, and of course you'd get results, but how much was 'enough'?

They crashed through halls and hallways that sapient eyes had not gazed upon for millennia and more. They exchanged blows that could break mountains. Rakissen kept alert for every possible sign of something that could give him an advantage, and kept ever downwards. The heat grew stronger, and with it Asirnoth's motions grew more erratic. It was enough of an advantage to keep Rakissen fighting, which was a victory in itself. Every moment he survived was a moment he could find the answer.

But he found nothing. Nothing, at all, and Asirnoth was wrenching the caverns apart, and as Rakissen stared up at its wide maw he realized he was staring at his death. Even so, he fought on. At one point he managed to cause a cave-in, crushing Asirnoth under tons upon tons of rock - not enough to kill it, or even wound it, but enough, he thought, to delay.

For a moment, he felt horror when he saw Asirnoth turn to a mercury-like liquid and flow between the rocks that covered it. For a moment.

Then he realized he could use this, and threw himself into the sea of metal.

It tried to crystallize around him, tried to reform its circuits and tendrils. Rakissen Legis did not let it. He tore it to pieces from within, all but swallowed by the unliving monster, knowing nothing but defiance. Gobs of quicksilver flew off, splattered like so much water. Ceramics vanished unformed, and engulfed by the ocean of his foe, Rakissen emerged from it gasping for air, bleeding from dozens of wounds, but triumphant.

He forced himself upright, making sure that Asirnoth was completely destroyed and would not re-coalesce. Then, and only then, he allowed himself to collapse from exhaustion. But before he did, he caught a glimpse of himself in a pool made from one of Asirnoth's molten fragments.

He seemed unchanged, even unscarred; yet his face and hair, the only parts of him armor had not protected, seemed in the dim underground light to shine with a sheen of faint silver.


	75. 2-53: Anhazthe 3

Anhazthe awoke in confusion.

For a moment, the events of the night seemed a terrible dream. Then, in the next moment, it was everything that had preceded it that had seemed like a naive dream, everything since the day Rakissen had taken command of the clan and she'd become an adult. How could she dare hope for everything to have worked?

But her mind settled, precipitated from the suspension it had been held in. Everything resolved itself, coming incrementally into focus. The ambush. The betrayal. The battle. The defeat.

Anhazthe felt tears on her face as she crawled out of the cave where she'd stayed the morning, and angrily wiped them off; the last thing she should be doing now was showing weakness. Already, surely, scavengers were picking over the treasures of the Avernii clan-crawler. She could come to them, offer her services - she was an Iron Father, after all, if an unconventional one. It was a route to survival, and in the long run even prosperity.

It was not what she did.

Instead, she used the magnoculars she'd snatched before the crawler had collapsed to scan the horizon, their vision piercing rock and revealing any humans in the vicinity. The survivors of Clan Avernii would be hiding, too. If she could find them, bring them together -

They could live in the caverns, for a time. Then, build a new crawler, for she had ideas as to how. It was difficult, nigh-impossible, and the voice of her mother in her head screamed at her to just be reasonable and deal with the scavengers.

Anhazthe had grown extremely skilled at ignoring her mother's voice in her head.

She found Gabriel first, crouched uncomfortably in a crack. He followed her without comment, as did the next two children she found. Then, Antama and Sonwam, along with their infant daughter and a cache of weapons. They too accepted her leadership.

Mahantru was more resistant. "Rakissen was wrong," she said. "Does this not prove it?"

"You can come with us or die alone," Anhazthe said.

They gathered in the upper portions of the Ahaggab caverns. There were weapons, and food, and pieces of archaeotech. Zenaqbaf had been found, burdened by the thought that it'd been his fault. Laangavarife had not been in good enough condition to move; she had been the last besides Rakissen to keep fighting the serpent, and had suffered fatal wounds in the process. Nevertheless, she'd passed on the location of several secret caches to Anhazthe and Zenaqbaf. "For the clan," she said before the end.

Arrsiw had been torn in half during the serpent's assault; and of Rakissen Legis, there remained no sign.

They gathered in a cavern, which they dubbed Avernus. More had survived than Anhazthe had at first thought, enough to continue the clan, certainly. The slaves had all escaped or been captured by the other clans, of course. They built up a palisade, and for two days they lived there, gathering resources from the surrounding territory. Even without Rakissen, without the crawler, they remained united; and so they could get through even this.

It was when Anhazthe had already began sketching the new clan-crawler that Clan Sorrgol found them.

They didn't stop to negotiate, not even to posture. They just attacked, out of nowhere. A flood of flame came pouring into the cavern, and Ahnazthe, one of the closest to the palisade, felt herself burn and suffocate both even as she tried to put the fire out. Zenaqbaf yelled for the children, and a few of their caretakers, to take the back exit. For his part, when after the brief plume of flame came the Sorrgol warriors, he strode forth, tossing his halberd back and forth in his hands, and faced them with a smile.

"Everyone else, retreat!" he ordered, but Anhazthe couldn't do more than crawl. Eventually she let herself stop, and watched the stand-off.

"So this is how Clan Avernii ends," said Sorrgol's patriarch - Awjig - as he stepped forth. "It's been a worthy challenge, Zenaqbaf. And I'll have you know we lost plenty of warriors in corralling the serpent. But you know this is hopeless, now that you've lost your - ahem - Ultimate Commander. Slavery, or death?"

Zenaqbaf leveled his halberd.

But before he could attack in that futile attempt to hold Clan Sorrgol off, Anhazthe's stinging eyes saw a commotion at the back of the Sorrgol lines. Bodies were flying, fast, too fast -

And Rakissen Legis, face for some reason silvered, returned to meet his clan.

The Sorrgol faced his vengeance. To see Rakissen fight like this was simply glorious - he wove under ever enemy blow, save for a few that merely glanced off his armor, and every strike of his own killed two clansmen at least. They were like miazz to a yarrk, prey and nothing more. Clan Sorrgol had some of Medusa's finest weapons, and strong champions, and plenty of archaeotech, and yet none of that mattered in the least. Not against Rakissen. Not today.

When they were all dead, Rakissen walked to Anhazthe and cupped her burnt face in his hands.

"You returned after all," she forced herself to say through the pain. "Don't stop..."

"Live, Anhazthe," Rakissen commanded. "I will rebuild you. That, I promise."

As Anhazthe faded from consciousness, she did not think she would awake again. But she did, in a different cavern, on an overly comfortable bed. She thought she was alone, at first, but as she began to get up with what seemed like a creak of her joints, Zenaqbaf turned around from his silent vigil, having seemed to meld with the terrain before.

"Anhazthe," he said, leaning down to help her up. "It's good to have you back. There was no way I should have been the last of the original Commanders."

"How fares the clan?" Anhazthe asked, before gripping her throat, because the voice had not been hers. More beautiful, perhaps, a touch higher, and distinctly metallic.

Her hand touched metal.

She looked down at herself, for the first time since waking. Where her body should have been was almost entirely a form of metal.

Zenaqbaf nodded. "Rakissen saved your brain, spine, a number of the internal organs... but your skin was almost unsalvageable. You should be stronger now, in most of the ways that matter."

"How long has it been?!" To as good as build a robotic body for her from scratch -

"A week," Zenaqbaf said.

"He did all that in a week?"

Zenaqbaf smiled. "He's Rakissen Legis," he said, "with access to archaeotech found in the depths of the Ahaggab Caverns. What did you expect? You asked me how the clan fares... well, perhaps a quarter of us made it. But with Legis leading us, not a soul doubts we'll rise again."


	76. 2-54: Gabriel 2

Clan Avernii's resurgence came faster than Gabriel Santar had expected. Faster, he sometimes thought, than anyone could have expected.

The first step had been constructing a new clan-crawler. Anhazthe had led that project, her motions if anything faster than before her injuries and reconstruction. Then, with the crawler charging out of the cavern mouth, Rakissen had announced his intent to deal with all the clans that had looted Clan Avernii's crawler to get their archaeotech back.

Some of the adults muttered after that they had no idea how Rakissen had pulled it off, not only getting restitution for the thefts but bringing those clans back into an Avernii-led confederation. Gabriel smiled, because he knew.

He'd pulled it off because he was Rakissen Legis, and he had offered forgiveness for their crimes against Clan Avernii. And any clan would much prefer that Rakissen forgive them as compared to the alternative, which was Sorrgol's fate.

The second tongue of the confederation, which had never gone into the Ahaggab Pinnacles at all, quickly reaffirmed their loyalty as if nothing had happened. Perhaps even if Clan Sorrgol had succeeded in destroying Clan Avernii, that alliance still would have endured, still would have unified Medusa in time.

As it was, where Gabriel had once been enthralled by two dozen crawlers moving in unison, soon he was watching hundreds. Of course, the clans would rarely come together like that. It was more efficient to spread out, to sweep a larger area for resources. But they all acknowledged the superiority of Clan Avernii, nevertheless, and those that did not were destroyed.

Rakissen Legis was the face of this rebirth, of course. His face and hair were silver, and he seemed at times more callous than before - though then again, perhaps Gabriel merely hadn't seen that side of him, before - but in the main he was the same Rakissen as ever. Alongside the Iron Fathers, he designed a system of cogitators that connected every crawler with each other, providing instant communication and guidance. And he delved ever deeper, fighting the monsters that hid below and returning with troves of technology to integrate into the confederation's crawlers.

Gabriel grew. He was not yet an adult, but he was old enough to recognize how quickly Rakissen was changing things. "Soon enough," Zenaqbaf sometimes commented, "we won't have any need for warriors anymore, the way this is going. No bad thing, admittedly. I just wonder if I could've done more."

Gabriel would have been in his place, had he been born a generation and a half earlier. The strongest youth of the clan, and one of the cleverest. He was proud, he knew, and he sought to keep that pride back - because it was the clan that mattered, not his individual skills. Besides which, Avernii was no longer the only clan that mattered. It was still the center of the world, but Gabriel could talk with friends half a world away, and that meant that his rivals half a world away could talk to Rakissen, if paths aligned.

As it was, there would be battles yet to fight. Medusa's people might have been all but unified, but that did not mean that Medusa itself ever could be. Even as Anhazthe worked on 'artificial intelligence', even as Rakissen designed greater mining engines than ever, the wilds of Medusa still teemed with monsters. Yet where the adults retained an instinctual respect for them, for the dominance they had once held, Gabriel knew their time had passed, that they were no longer something to totemize, because humanity had deposed them, surpassed their strength with unification.

Such was the age of victory.


	77. 2-55: Rakissen 5

The strangers arrived in the southern wastes.

The unification of Medusa had been completed two days before. Now, with reports of a fallen star, Rakissen Legis led a group of ten clan-crawlers, led by that of Clotho, to find the place where something - something very large, it seemed - had landed.

So they went, a great procession with Rakissen at their head. Zenaqbaf had asked to accompany him. The War Commander was ancient now, his single eye looking at the world with the toughness of age, his hair long since white.

Rakissen knew he had not been touched by time, no more so than Anhazthe after her reconstruction. But Anhazthe was mostly iron, now, and even she required treatments; he was only flesh, and yet the only force that had truly changed him was the serpent he had destroyed.

His silver visage was a legacy of victory. He had taken Asirnoth's strength for his own. That, at least, was how he liked to view it. In his darkest moments he wondered whether some part of him was no longer Rakissen, but Asirnoth.

The procession passed by the shores of the Ink Sea, through the Dihalorbe Arches, and onto the fertile Usainax Plain. There, among the high grasses, which were colored a strange and vivid green, they found what they were seeking.

It was during a storm. The crawlers were secured, and most of the expedition decided to wait it out, but Rakissen went ahead to scout, armored and with his new spear in his hands. He walked as the storm strengthened, scouring his armor clean, and then he saw a golden light amidst the rain.

No, not a light. A man. Or a being, at the least, since this person was likely about as human as Rakissen himself. They walked towards each other, the stranger in golden armor and Rakissen in his grey plate.

"Who are you?" Rakissen asked, slightly raising his voice. "And why have you come to Medusa?"

"I am the Emperor," the figure said. "And I have come here as part of my mission to unify all human worlds - but above all, I have come here to find you, my son."

They were face-to-face now. The Emperor was black-haired and as tall as Rakissen, if not taller, bearing a sheathed sword emitting tongues of flame. His face was sometimes that of a great leader, other times of a warrior, others still of a scholar or a simple hunter, its features dependent on Rakissen's perspective.

Rakissen hesitated for a moment. The Emperor's words had the ring of profound truth, and something within him sang with the knowledge that, yes, here was the one who had created him.

But it was not for that reason that he knelt.

He knelt, after that instant, because he knew that the Emperor's goals were the same as his.

"For unity," he said, bowing his head, the rain running off his hair. "I am yours to command, father, as is Medusa. For the cause of unity, there is nothing I will not do; no task I will shy away from, no challenge I will back down from, no necessity I will scorn. Until humanity is one across all the cosmos. Until we have won."

"Until we have won," the Emperor said in agreement. "Rise, my son. Rise, and tell me of your world."

Rakissen did so, as they walked back to the crawlers. They conversed quietly among the thunder and the gales, talking of histories and governments. Above all, they spoke of Medusa - of the Medusa that the Emperor remembered, from an age long gone, and also of the Medusa that Rakissen had crafted, as well as, inevitably, of the world of scavengers that had existed between the two, a legend of prosperity siren-calling colony ships to their destruction, survivors of countless expeditions cobbling together a million subcultures that had, in the end, stabilized as the Clans Rakissen had landed among and the Iron Fathers that had kept them alive.

Medusa had accreted people like it had accreted ruins, layers upon layers struggling to survive. Even now, it was so very far from being truly tamed, and if its present surface was unified its ancient depths would, perhaps, never be.

But as Rakissen stepped out from the storm, as the people of Clan Clotho knelt to the golden figure in their midst, he was not thinking of that. Instead, as ever, he was looking forward.

Medusa had been a ramshackle construction of countless failures, but it had been made strong by unification.

The galaxy was next.


	78. 2-56: Ri 7

Ri Domaan had been promised that Terra was a world being reborn, and so it was, to an extent.

It was unlike Avalon, fundamentally so. For Avalon had been a world which civilization had made only small, careful marks upon. On Terra, it had instead rewritten everything about humanity's homeworld. Every valley had a history, but where on Avalon that history was one of tectonism and erosion, on Terra it derived from the explosions of city-leveling weapons.

It could have been - should have been, intuitively - enough to end the human presence on Terra's reworked soil. But after every apocalypse, humanity had rebuilt, again and again, on the soil that had been corpses millennia ago. That now new oceans were being filled felt like but another chapter, world-changing in the literal but not the figurative sense.

Ri was taken aback by all of it, to an extent. The bedrock was so far down, and much of it was in its own right deposits from civilizations past... He had spoken about eternity, on Avalon, but now he felt like he was looking at eternity, and the sight did not exactly inspire him. Was this what he had advocated for, really?

Was this his dream, or an impersonal nightmare?

He was looking down at one such ruin now, from between metal spines that rose like snow penitentes from the hills. In one of the valleys, the town of Xuan thrived, but it was as nothing to the vast metropolis that surrounded it. His blue cloak, its edges tattered by the harshness of some of Terra's unnatural climes, rippled in the afternoon wind.

"You know," said a voice as it came up behind him, "you haven't exactly made it easy to find you."

Ri turned to see a man that looked old and frail physically. Psychically, though, he shone, silver, as brightly as any mage Ri had seen, save for the Emperor. "Sigillite Malcador, I presume."

"Malcador will suffice," the mage said. "You did not come to the Palace."

"I wished to see Terra as it truly was," Ri said. "The land, not merely the palace."

"In my youth I might have done the same," Malcador mused. "Still, you will be needed soon." He gazed across the artificial canyons, between twisted spires and crumbling walls. "Glorious Xuan, where the Ruby Legate ruled. Jewel of the east, upon the foaming shore, knowing neither want nor war, the last echo of a golden age. Then, there came the melair, xenos who offered the Ruby Legate an alliance and used it to drain its economy dry. Or perhaps it was a raid from the Mechanicum that destroyed or stole its clausmachines. Both happened, though those who remember Xuan tend to blame only one. With the people of Xuan poor, they turned upon the Ruby Legate for failing to save them, and what a hundred invading armies could not do, they achieved. Xuan fell, and only centuries later were its ruins re-inhabited by scavengers and miners."

Ri nodded. Malcador was not speaking to moralize, he could tell; merely remembering the past. "Were you there?"

"For a time," Malcador said. "Not in its last days." He looked at the city for a moment, seemingly lost in memory. "But there are archives at the Palace, you know."

"It's not the same," Ri insisted.

"No," Malcador said, the sand crunching under his feet, "that it is not."

Ri Domaan, for his part, thought of Malcador's claim. This ruin was thousands of years old, without a doubt. There were tales of mages who extended their own lives, on Avalon; yet when those stories did not end as warnings against hubris, as they usually did, they ended in death of some other form. To be ageless did not mean that one was invulnerable, and Ri suspected the same applied to him as well.

"How old are you?" he asked. "Or the Emperor? And - why now? I am the seventh, but the creation of my brothers did not long precede mine."

"Old enough," Malcador said, rapping his staff against the sand, "that it is impolite to ask the question." He chuckled. "As to why now... Because the Imperium was not needed, before."

Ri nodded, remembering the Emperor's claim that he had not always worn a crown.

"To be sure, though," Malcador said, "I have made history as well as watching it. As will you." He looked back towards the shuttle, his point obvious. "Out of curiosity," the Sigillite asked as they walked to it, "how did the people of Terra react to you?"

"Not unlike those of Avalon," Ri said. "Awed attention, enthusiastic explanation... I do not think they recognized who I was. Perhaps they did not even think about it."

Malcador nodded. "Concerning," he said. "They should have been more vigilant. Not all charismatic strangers are as well-meaning as you."

"Namely..."

Malcador shrugged. "Xenos, for one. Besides that - well, you are a psyker. I should hope you know some of the dangers of that path."

Corruption from dark magic, and the darker things that the rifts promised. No, Ri was not ignorant of magic's dangers, nor of the possibility of monsters, human or others, using it deceptively.

Ri hesitated only a moment before stepping into the shuttle, feeling the disconnection from the earth. This place was not vital and vast as Avalon was; it was more like a library, or perhaps a cogitator, a space riddled with countless tunnels of information intersecting to form an endless history. There were lessons to be learned in that history, and in the present that surfed upon it, lessons that he was not yet finished with.

But Malcador was not wrong, when he said that there was much else to do.


	79. 2-57: Rakissen 6

Rakissen Legis was used to seeing the light of the Telstarax in the sky, on clear nights. It was a band of irregular light, shining bluish with a glow reflected from Sthelenus. There were legends, of course, of how men had once lived in its corridors; but Rakissen had not thought of returning to walk them. It would have been a difficult project, and other priorities were ahead of it.

Now he stood beside the Emperor within its observatories, and looked at Medusa and the void around it from above.

Sthelenus burned undimmed in the corner of the viewscreen, its small disk unpleasantly bright to look at. And below it, gray clouds covering the arc of Medusa.

Of his world.

"We are in an antechamber, more or less," the Emperor explained. "Most of the Telstarax is untamed."

"And, naturally, filled with dangerous archaeotech," Rakissen guessed. "Most of which will try to kill any explorers."

"Indeed," the Emperor acknowledged. "Clearing the Telstarax will take time. How are your people taking my arrival?"

Rakissen shrugged. "Well enough," he said. He brooked questioning, but not dissent, and all in all there was no dissent that the Emperor's arrival would have invited anyhow. The Imperium was made strong by unity, and the Emperor was truly mighty individually, as well - stronger than himself by far. What use, in fighting that?

And besides which, the Emperor's dogma fit perfectly with the beliefs the confederation of Medusa had been built upon.

"Medusa will need to be integrated into the Imperium," the Emperor continued, "but, of course, how that is done is entirely up to you. Mechanicum archaeologists are chomping at the bit to explore the ruins, but they will not go against your will."

Rakissen saw nothing wrong with such expeditions, so long as the findings were shared with his subordinates rather than being lost in some vault on Mars, and he said as much. The Mechanicum, as he understood it, performed much the same role in the Imperium as the Iron Fathers on Medusa, and that role was no less essential.

But it was not his own role. "I know what you intend for Medusa; but what is it you intend _me_ to do, Father?" he asked frankly. "You have spoken of creating me to be a general."

"One of twenty primarchs," the Emperor said. "You and your brothers, three of which have already been found, will be the leaders of the Imperium's expansion, bringing worlds into compliance by diplomacy and war alike. You will, of course, also have dominion over the Sthelenus system, and rule it as you see fit, under my authority; your brothers have the same for their own homeworlds."

Rakissen nodded - he had already surmised that he was to lead an army. But, he asked, which army?

"Ah," the Emperor said. "Have I truly forgotten to speak of that? The Astarte Legions, one for each primarch. They are transhuman warriors, augmented to be stronger and faster than any other army in the galaxy with the aid of the primarchs' gene-codes. You are the Thirteenth Primarch, and you will soon have command of the Thirteenth Legion, currently known as the War-Born. They are currently engaged in the Shedim Drifts campaign, which is led by Primarch Faro."

Rakissen Legis took that in, trying to keep his expression neutral. He had sons, of a sort; and they were fighting and dying without him there to lead them. Of course, he had greater responsibilities - to the Imperium, to Medusa - but the Imperium needed him precisely as a general, and Medusa could manage without him for a time.

"I should be there," he said.

The Emperor remained impassive. "I had not planned on you taking command of the Thirteenth Legion immediately," he admitted. "There is much you have yet to learn about the galaxy."

"There is," Rakissen admitted, "but how to fight, I already know. I do not ask for command, not yet; I ask merely to fight alongside my sons. That should come before leading them, and now seems a fitting time for it."

The Emperor took a long look at the halls of the Telstarax before them, and then nodded.

"You are ready," he said. "Very well, I grant you this boon. You will travel to the Shedim Drifts aboard the _Principal Moment_ , and take command of the Thirteenth Legion there." Rakissen opened his mouth, but the Emperor immediately answered his unsaid question. "You were made for command, and it would set a poor precedent for a primarch to fight with his Legion without leading it."

Days afterwards, as the _Principal Moment_ was being prepared for Warp transit, Rakissen wondered why he had been so insistent. The War-Born were of his blood, true, but that was not enough of a reason in itself: blood mattered, but not as much as unity. Medusa was as much his responsibility as the War-Born, and indeed moreso.

But Medusa did not need him at this moment. The Emperor had apparently planned to send him to the Sol system, to learn of the Imperium. Perhaps there was reason in that - but his place in the great engine of the Imperium was on the front, and it was of the front that he truly needed to learn, and for that there was no better place than the campaign itself. No, he concluded, this was the right path.

And having decided that, he set his resolve in stone.

The Great Crusade awaited, and he was ready to do his part for humanity's reunification.


	80. 2-58: Jorin 3

The ice crunched under Jorin Bloodhowl's foot.

Normally, that would be a bad sign, here on Rykop Heap. Normally, it would indicate either a lurking beast or an unstable surface. But given Jorin's weight in his power armor, it was all but inevitable, just as when a mammoth walked by. Of course, the armor gave him the strength of a mammoth as well, greater when combined with his augmentations - something that never ceased to impress him.

He was alone among the conifers. Slightly dangerous, even after his transformation, but he had no doubt that it was necessary.

He had to bid farewell to Mother Fenris alone, after all.

He climbed up, chopping through the dense undergrowth and looking for a clear rock face. Making his way through the sleetwood was taking too much time. But then he saw, between the trees, the site of a recent avalanche, which had cut a stream of rubble through the forest. Already, sprouts were starting to colonize the rubble, but for now it was clear enough.

Jorin chopped his way to the avalanche, thinking of fallen friends. He had been one of the very few, among Valmar's einherjar, to have joined the Draka Fenryka successfully. Jorin did not quite know why it had been him, save for the gods' dice. Others were younger, more promising... he had been Valmar's right hand, true, but he had always known in his heart, back when he'd only had one, that Valmar didn't truly need him, as another king might.

It was a foul mood he was in, as foul as the weather, which was clearly close to a storm. But still, as he tested his footing on the edge of the scree, Jorin felt it was clearing up somewhat, fading into a purer melancholy.

His first life hadn't been a bad one, not by any measure. The shores of Unaeslan, where he had been born. Befriending Valmar, and learning how to fight alongside the demigod. Leading the Sky King's retinue as they sailed to Asaheim, and built a realm like nothing Fenris had known. Ana's smile, and their children, which would carry on his blood into future generations.

He had bid almost all of it farewell now, all but Valmar Russ. And perhaps that too was part of why he was here now, to come to terms with his rebirth.

He climbed along the edge of the clearing, taking care not to dislodge more than a few pebbles, and then along the spires, and to the top of Rykop. The cloud base was immediately above him now, and he felt the first drops of rain upon his hair. Still, he took in the view fully before starting his descent. The slate-gray plane of storm above him, a level top to the world, into which the ridge to Tror disappeared. And below, crags of rock, at whose base the trees rose, ever higher as one descended, until the streams collected into rivers and Thengirik itself rose, walls surrounded by forcefully cleared fields, the first sanctuary of the Asaheimar and the greatest. And beyond it, far beyond, the edge of Asaheim's plateau, jaggedly dashing to the sea, which no doubt was swirling and raging in its own right.

This was Fenris! Its rage and its kindness, its wonder and its horrors. This was Fenris, this was the world and the civilization Jorin Bloodhowl had been born into - except it wasn't really, was it? Unaeslan was gone, and the Russ themselves had changed. For the better, of course.

Still, Jorin supposed as he descended, this was not the first time in his life everything had changed, not really. You couldn't stand still, in this universe. So it was only proper, that he did not.

Ulbrandr nodded to him when he returned. "You almost missed the departure, you know," Crowhame pointed out. He bore the white armor of an Apothecary now, but his unhelmeted face was still the same one Jorin remembered as his childhood rival. "Would have been somewhat embarrassing, don't you think?"

Jorin shrugged and, under the weakening drizzle, followed Ulbrandr to the muster grounds. Valmar Beastbinder was directing the shuttles' loading, followed around by Geri and Hral. The two wolves had been rebuilt by the Sky King, their flesh intimately bonded with metal in a manner not unlike the Mechanicum's tech-priests. Their behavior seemed to show little change at that, though. Arnir circled above, looking with suspicion at the aircraft that shared the sky with it.

Valmar Russ himself wore relatively simple power armor, painted in the Draka Fenryka's new ice-blue and red - 'simple' in the sense that it was no more a wonder of metallurgy than Jorin's own suit, which was not saying much. He had spoken of forging himself a more advanced suit, but there had been no time, not really.

It was time for war. It was time to set sail for the Wheel of Fire.

"Jorin," Valmar greeted his equerry. "Are you ready?"

"As ever," Jorin said.

Valmar took a look into the distance, searching the high mountains of Asaheim for something or other, between the clouds. "No beasts encountered on your sojourn?"

There'd been a bear in the foothills, shortly after setting out, though Jorin had driven it away. Nothing after that, though. Perhaps his armor had scared them away.

"Most likely," Valmar acknowledged. "They're certainly still there. Well, anyhow, you'll be riding up in my shuttle, once we've got everyone loaded. The last to leave Fenris."

"Did I miss the speech, then?"

"I never gave one."

Jorin looked askance at his primarch. "Really?"

"A few remarks on the foe we're facing, nothing more," Valmar said.

And Jorin felt he recognized why, from the Sky King's expression, though he could never be sure. Because Valmar was just as affected by the departure from Fenris as Jorin himself. Because this was a momentous occasion, but unlike so many of the other momentous occasions, it was as momentous for Valmar himself as for any of them.

He was leaving Fenris, and it would be years before he would return.

"It'll be fine," Jorin said. "Asaheim is stable, and Hicond has it well in hand."

"I know," Valmar said.

"It's not our first departure."

And Valmar smiled. "That," he said, "is true as well. But then, does that make it any lesser?"

Jorin thought his primarch's eyes were slightly misty as he said it; but they cleared quickly. By the time the gunship was carrying them up to the _Klostzatz_ , Valmar was not looking at the curve of Fenris's horizon below them, but ahead to the void.

Jorin didn't have quite the same self-control, and so he looked down, between his fellow Dragon Warriors and the sleeping wolves and the primarch-sized warhammer leaning against the hull, and gazed upon the storms from above.


	81. 2-59: Shadrak 1

The _Thetis_ tore into the Durlix System so dramatically that, for a moment, Shadrak Smyth of the Storm Walkers thought that it had been damaged by the Warp exit. But while the armature shuddered, it easily held. The flagship of the Tenth Legion was stronger than this.

"Well," Legion Master Amadeus DuCaine said once the transition out of Warp was complete, "we're here, one way or another. Someone please go and remind the Navigator that we're no good to the Crusade dead. Sensors?"

They came up quickly enough, the consoles showing the Storm Walker ships surrounding it in formation. More distant from them was the fleet of the Second Legion, arrayed in a loose formation, its ships more numerous by a fair amount than the Tenth's. And next to it, there hung the fleet of the Eighteenth Legion, now marked in pale blue. It was the smallest of the three by far, yet it would have command of the campaign.

Smyth didn't know much about the Eighteenth - they were one of the secrecy-shrouded trefoil, after all. Their martial record was that of victories with heavy casualties, which spoke to courage at the least. The Second was a different matter, and much more of a known quantity. Indeed, Smyth even counted Captain Quend Ozamaan of that Legion a friend. They were rarely gathered in such numbers, though - even now, much of the Second was assigned in small groups to Rogue Traders ranging ahead of the Expeditionary Fleets, but the bulk of it was here, as were the bulks of the Tenth and the Eighteenth.

It was a massive concentration of Imperial power, indeed the greatest Shadrak had seen.

"Well then," his Legion Master said, "let's see what this prince is like."

Shadrak Smyth had only seen Faro Aquilair at a distance. The primarch of the Third had no shortage of tales surrounding him, but even if all those tales were true, they said nothing at all about the Eighteenth's new commander.

DuCaine called two captains to come with him - Smyth and Hamelten - along with an honor guard of ten veterans. "There's no need to bring a bunch of captains that won't fit into the _Klostzatz_ 's strategium," he noted. "I'll tell you what we're supposed to be doing later."

When their shuttle doors opened, docked to the Eighteenth's flagship, Smyth had to suppress a shiver - it was surprisingly cold, though no real problem for Astartes. The Dragon Warriors' delegation, in their bluish-white armor, seemed unaffected. Half a dozen, but it was the foremost and largest figure among them that his gaze immediately locked onto.

Valmar Russ was dark-skinned, with unruly shoulder-length hair, and towered even when compared to the Astartes. At his sides were two wolves, half-rebuilt with cybernetics. It was a slightly incongruous sight, but the primarch managed to pull the look off - like a barbarian king, perhaps. A techno-barbarian, of course, given his masterworked thunder hammer.

DuCaine bowed, Smyth and Hamelten following suit. "Lord Valmar Russ," the Legion Master said.

"Legion Master DuCaine," the primarch acknowledged. "Captains Smyth and Hamelten." Smyth was somewhat surprised, and perhaps honored, that the primarch had bothered to look up his name. "You've arrived just in time for the feast."

That feast, Smyth found, was a somewhat disorderly affair. But then, between the amount of alcohol available and its strength, that was no surprise. Smyth was seated close to Legion Master Kallhoth of the Second, who regaled them with tales of Preffe, in the Phnaqu Reaches, and the bizarre but competent xenos thereof. Soon other memories of campaigns past came up, victories both easy and hard-won.

All in all, Smyth noted, the Dragon Warriors had more of the latter. It seemed the Eighteenth had little in the way of a sense of self-preservation. Which was all well and good for the Astartes, but which the Solar Auxilia attached to their force would ill-appreciate.

Though that was a worry for his commanders, in the moment.

It was on the next day that the more important meeting took place, in the strategium. Valmar Russ laid out maps of the Wheel of Fire and the current state of knowledge on the ork empire therein. "The entire cluster," he said, "is ruled by the greenskins. However, there is a vast enslaved human population."

There was revulsion at that, as there would always have been at xenos daring to presume themselves above humanity.

"The world of Xit," Valmar pointed out, "is relatively minor, yet strategically located. If we capture it quickly, we will draw the orks out to attack it."

DuCaine nodded in grinning approval. "You mean to raise the storm."

"Meanwhile," the primarch continued, "while the Tenth Legion holds Xit, the Eighteenth will be used to cut off the ork armies, and the Second will attack other targets throughout the subsector." He plotted his strategy on the chart with only a few lazy strokes, but try as he might, Smyth couldn't see a flaw in it. To be sure, no one could predict the orks, but Valmar's plan retained enough flexibility to account for that. More surprising, though, was that even the demanding DuCaine could add little to the plan except a nod. Kallhoth did briefly quibble about the precise worlds that his Legion would be liberating, driving more towards sabotaging ork industry than Valmar's initial intent of freeing the human population of the cluster; but he too was quickly won over to the primarch's side.

It was, Shadrak Smyth later realized, such an effective decision precisely because it played to both Legion Masters' preferences. DuCaine would be the anvil, as he preferred, and Kallhoth would rely on rapid raids, as was his way. Moreover, the plan didn't deny any of them their share of glory. Diplomatically, it was a masterstroke.

But, of course, what mattered was how it would fare in war.


	82. 2-60: Thrallas 6

The siege was into its fourth month when the offer of truce arrived.

Its fourth month - and its last. Faro had taken precautions aplenty, after the Mechanicum had wasted the first wave of asteroids, but by now the second wave was being accelerated, and fitted with stealth systems too. They would hit the enemy base at relativistic speed within two weeks. The eldar might well have known it too, though Thrallas wasn't entirely sure how, and it was an immediate thought that the offer might be a reaction to their immediate destruction.

Legion Master Vosotho laughed at the truce offer. Legion Master Minos was more restrained, but he too was shocked when Faro actually began to consider it.

Thrallas was not.

"It is true," he said, "they are xenos, and they have - in effect - been defeated. But that is precisely why there is little risk in learning of them, before their destruction. It is likely a ploy, but so long as we are aware it's a ploy..."

"Playing for time doesn't harm us," Minos admitted, "not at this point." Left unsaid was the possibility that they had delayed too long already.

"The xenos are known to include witches among them," Vosotho pointed out.

Thrallas nodded, grasping the implication. "Primarch," he said, because it was his place to say it, "that is cause for concern. They have nothing to oppose our martial might, but if they do not mean to negotiate honestly, but rather to bend your mind..."

"I doubt my father would have engineered such a weakness into me," Faro said with a chuckle. "He is a psyker of no mean power himself, after all."

That was true enough, but hardly confirmation, though Minos took it as sufficient. "It strikes me as cowardice," the Luna Wolf said, "to refuse to speak with the enemy because of psychic abilities that they likely do not even have."

"Strategic precaution is not cowardice," Vosotho protested.

Faro sighed. "If you so insist," he said, "then take precautions for the case of me being compromised. But it's better that such a thing happens here than in more desperate circumstances."

That was quite sufficient for Thrallas and Vosotho both, though it still left Faro shaking his head as he returned to the _Gloriana_ alongside Thrallas. "Paranoia," he said, "nothing more, Thrallas. The Emperor is as powerful a psyker as any xeno, certainly stronger than any pirate on this battlestation - and even he cannot so casually change a human mind. Destroy it, yes, but that is always easier."

Thrallas pursed his lips as he considered how true that was. Certainly, the Emperor's charisma was superhuman - so was Faro's own, for that matter. That was part of what the Imperium had been built from. And they had found xeno polities who used psychic powers for the opposite ends, to keep humans enslaved.

All the same, such monsters had already been cast down by the might of the Astartes, and there was no reason to think these eldar were any different; and so Thrallas accepted his concerns as baseless.

Besides this, there was something to be said as well of learning about these foes. So Thrallas accepted with equanimity the news that Faro was going ahead with a negotiation. Since neither side entirely trusted the other, the talks would physically proceed on a pair of docked shuttles, one from both sides, that would form a station orbiting the xeno 'craftworld', as the base's class was apparently called in Gothic translation. As to its proper name, only Faro could pronounce even a reasonable facsimile of it; to the others, it became known as Mor-rioh'i, which was far enough from the true pronunciation that the xenos didn't even seem to realize what it referred to.

Thrallas was slightly discomfited by this, truth be told. The Solar Heralds had fought many xenos species over the years, and the other Legions more still; but few of those societies deserved the name of 'civilization'. The eldar, by contrast, spoke Gothic flawlessly, albeit with a constantly disgusted tone, while their own language remained a mystery to the Imperials; and perhaps more importantly, their technology was nearly unmatched among that the Crusade had encountered. If not for their low numbers, they could well have defeated even the force of three Legions.

But what Thrallas did not know, and would dearly love to, was why such a puissant society had been reduced to piracy in the first place.


	83. 2-61: Rakissen 7

Rakissen Legis's arrival to the combined fleet was unheralded. Astropathic messages, it seemed, had that tendency to be lost in the void. As such, the _Sethaln's Thunder_ , the flagship of the Thirteenth Legion - of _his_ Legion - was in a state of complete uproar upon his arrival. Festive uproar, to be sure, but also very confused uproar.

Rakissen did not judge them for that disarray - it was not as if he had himself made a formal processional when the Emperor had landed upon Medusa.

Captain Mescnius, of the War-Born's Fourth Company, was the one to greet Rakissen in the bay, surrounded by about a hundred Astartes. They were much as the Emperor had described them - larger than normal humans, and yet faster, transhuman warriors in gray plate not unlike Rakissen's own newly forged power armor; they, at first glance, could well live up to the Emperor's description of the Legions as the finest fighting force in the galaxy.

The honor guard knelt, Mescnius at their head. "My primarch," the captain said. "Welcome to the _Sethaln's Thunder_."

Rakissen was taken aback for an instant, at the gesture and the body language that accompanied it. He had expected obeisance, perhaps even awe, but not - yet - loyalty. That had to be earned. If anything, he had thought it more likely there would be some sort of challenge. Was it merely their shared gene-code , or perhaps a precedent set by the other primarchs?

"Rise," he said. "Rise, Astartes of the Thirteenth! I am glad to meet you at last, my sons, but we have much to do." He stepped forward, walking towards the heart of the vessel and beckoning Mescnius after him. "So. This campaign has become a siege, last I have heard?"

"Yes, my lord," Mescnius said. "The enemy 'craftworld' is well-defended, and after our initial attacks were beaten back, Faro Aquilair has enforced a blockade while setting up asteroids to destroy the base with."

As they spoke about the strategic situation, Rakissen took in the ship around him. The _Sethaln's Thunder_ was lesser than the _Bucephelus_ , in size and in decoration, yet it was still elegantly functional. It was not ostentatious, which pleased Legis, but banners of past battles hung in its great halls, marking the past accomplishments of the War-Born; they told a dual story, though, for the Thirteenth Legion took its recruits in large part from the children of the worlds it conquered. It was a practice that would be curtailed with the use of Medusa as a recruiting world, but Legis was not yet sure if he wanted to end it entirely. On the one hand, it raised the potential of divided loyalties; on the other, it was a potent symbol of unity from diversity, binding conquered worlds closer into the engine of the Imperium.

Legion Master Gren Vosotho knelt before Rakissen in the center of this gallery, which was like a perfectly straight canyon gouged within the heart of the ship. He said nothing in that moment, save a brief apology for the disorder. Afterwards, though, he quickly summarized the situation, rather more efficiently than Mescnius had.

"And my brother is aboard the _Gloriana_ at the moment then, I take it?" Rakissen asked.

"No, my lord," Vosotho said with a grunt of annoyance - not with him, Rakissen realized, but with the Solar Heralds. "He is aboard a temporary station, negotiating with the xenos, not to be distracted."

"What?" Rakissen paused, trying to integrate this into his image of the Imperium. "From your description, these xenos are not so powerful as to require any form of... appeasement. Even if they were, it would be distasteful, to say the least."

"I agree."

"What is his reason to negotiate, then? Or is it an oversimplification that all xenos must be destroyed?"

"I do not know," Vosotho said, exasparated. "I do not know what his reasoning is, my lord, and I do not understand it, and I certainly do not agree with it."

"Could it be a ruse?" Rakissen wondered, as he took in the disposition of the fleets. "Make the xenos let their guard down, and strike in the moment of weakness?"

"I do not think so," Vosotho admitted, "from his words. Though perhaps..."

Rakissen shifted the geometry of the blockade around in his mind, deciding how to proceed. His purpose was clear - to win this war, by any means necessary. That was obvious. His means to achieve this consisted of the War-Born, and of indeterminate influence on the rest of the fleet. Faro had overall command, but his brother's intent was a mystery, meaning that it was something to be planned around.

"This corridor," Rakissen said. "The approach along a figure-eight trajectory... With support from the lower battlegroups, we could land on the craftworld."

There was silence. "I don't see it," Mescnius eventually admitted.

Rakissen plotted the trajectories on the console. It was a daring assault, to be sure, but with the eldar's guard down he expected it to work, because if it did not founder quickly it would be self-supporting, grids of fire covering each other and hammering an opening into the craftworld. It took a few minutes for Vosotho, and Second Captain Marius Gage, to see the plan, and several more for the rest of the senior officers present; but once they did, they granted immediate approval.

"Are there any proposals for improving the plan?" Rakissen asked. There were none, which was a disappointment. "Do not be afraid of such suggestions," he added. "You know the capabilities of the Legion better than me."

"Perhaps have the _Sethaln's Thunder_ on the left spiral of the helix," Gage proposed, "switch it with the _Cypranal_? It would make a retreat easier."

"Retreat?" Third Captain Wolt Tharan scoffed. "Our gene-father leads us! We will not lose."

"We will with that sort of overconfidence," Gage countered.

Rakissen nodded. He was not infallible, and while being perceived as such by the masses could be beneficial, it was important that his advisors saw more clearly. Regardless, he took in the recommendations, the details of his plan filled in like shading on a sketch without changing its overall shape.

He was satisfied with his sons, he ultimately concluded during that briefing. Above all, because they understood the value of cooperation, and put it into practice with an ease even Clan Avernii had not matched, because they were used to fighting for Unity. But they also showed individual competence, as tacticians and as leaders, and a general reasonableness that set him at ease. And regardless of their diverse origins, they were, if not entirely at ease with him, at ease with their place in the Imperium.

He could certainly work with that.

"A brilliant plan," Vosotho said eventually, looking up at his primarch. "Shall we put it into practice, then?"

Rakissen Legis paused before giving the order. In this moment, his doubts about this course of action flooded back. There was a great deal he did not know about the situation, not least of that being what, if anything, Faro was planning, and whether his brother had merely not seen this vector of attack or if he'd had reasons for refusing it and instead settling for a siege, and how much fire support the War-Born would receive - alone, he had no doubt they would triumph, but with severe casualties.

But, Rakissen Legis knew, he was too committed already to back down now.

"Give the order to the Legion fleet," he commanded. "Commence Operation Inceptor."


	84. 2-62: Faro 14

The two shuttles docked silently, and the doors between them spun open.

Faro stood before them, in ceremonial armor that was very much functional. Merely because he wanted to talk with these xenos did not imply he overly trusted them. Keyshen was here, of course, and so was an honor guard - five Astartes, each of them a champion with either blade or bolter. Perhaps, he thought, he should consider forming a permanent honor guard formation, but he was not sure it would be any better than picking worthy Astartes from among the Solar Heralds' general ranks ad hoc. Certainly, he did not really need a bodyguard. Not that the Emperor did, either, though...

Aside from the shuttle's pilot and crew, the delegation included two baseline humans. Iterator Hauted was there because this was a negotiation, no matter how unpromising; Ydonne Mirmiet, meanwhile, had wished to come along to preserve a record of the meeting, and Faro had approved the historian's request. Finally, Magos Biologis Yarkyle had an understandable scientific interest in seeing xenos that were not shooting at him.

The delegation facing them was smaller in number - three figures, two female and one male, wearing robes quite unlike the battle-armor their warriors had on record, though no doubt protected in their own way. The male, who seemed to be the leader, bore a staff illuminated by seemingly psychic power.

"I am Faro Aquilair of Cthonia," Faro said in Gothic, "representative for the Imperium of Man." He briefly introduced the rest of the delegation as well.

"I am Iaragbukaniath, of House Laakomnal, speaking for Craftworld Mor-rioh'i," the psyker said in response. His companions introduced themselves as Archaia and Parrhuane, representing other noble houses. "Will you follow us?"

Faro bent over to follow them into the eldar shuttle. It was an elaborate space of metallic and fibrous decorations, but where the substructure shone through it showed a bony texture.

"That is the low-gravity progeny of a cutting of the Aeklim tree," Parrhuane explained of the vine-like growth covering one of the walls. "The original grew in the heart of Melinesh's capital, a hundred generations' first kisses under its boughs, before its destruction. The table is made of metal mined from the ruined ships of our foes, over the thousand years preceding its construction, human metals among them. All those victories, long lost to time."

That the pewter-colored table was in any way a trophy was impossible to tell - the artifacts from, surely, a hundred different species were fitted together too neatly for that. They took their seats around it.

"So," Iaragbukaniath said, "Mor-rioh'i faces destruction, I congratulate you on your victory. We sailed through the stars, proud and free, in time inevitably provoking too great a foe."

"Why?" Faro asked. That was his greatest question, in truth. "The Shedim Drifts were no threat to you. Why the raids, why the blockade?"

"The raids were raids, for who could stand against us? Some among us see a right to take what we wish from our lessers." Iaragbukaniath did not sound particularly convinced by this argument, but then, it was likely no coincidence that he had been sent as a negotiator. "As to the blockade, foresight is clouded, paths lead back upon themselves. The Drifts were fated to be a threat, but we did not see why, that it would come only once they were integrated into your Imperium."

"You refer to psychic foresight," Keyshen recognized after Faro didn't immediately respond. "Then you know what is coming."

"Mass destruction, the end of Mor-rioh'i, I know. We have evacuated who we could, but there is much that could not be saved, the Craftworld itself included."

"Evacuated? How?!" Keyshen exclaimed.

"We have ways," the xeno leader said with a trace of amusement.

"Portals of some sort," Faro said. "Your means of interstellar travel, which does not require..."

He clenched his fists at how easily he had been outplayed. The Astartes' expressions were similar. Evidently, the eldar could not evacuate significant military assets - if they could have done so, they would have continued their raids - but if they were telling the truth (no guarantee of that existed, of course, and they were hard to read, but it was a definite possibility), they had still saved much of themselves. As a military threat, Mor-rioh'i had been crushed. But the xenos had escaped, and would return to trouble humanity in due time.

And yet -

"And yet," Faro said, "you value the Craftworld itself enough to negotiate now."

"We do," Iarabukaniath said. "In the spirit of openness, our dead are housed here, and that cannot be moved."

"Superstition," Iterator Hauted muttered, a thought Faro mirrored. Still, it could be dealt with.

"How long?" Faro wondered. "How many generations have lived their lives in this Craftworld?"

"Of your years," Archaia said haughtily, "Mor-rioh'i has seen fifty-seven thousand, as military scouting of the Empire, then as an independent domain." Longer than all of human history, though that did not necessarily speak to worth.

"Fifty-seven thousand..." Hauted shook his head, leaning forward. "And what do you remember, of those millennia?"

There was much indeed, of which they spoke for a while. The eldar were reticent, revealing only glimpses of their long histories, great achievements, and ruinous failures. Of military matters they said very little, and around the destruction of the empire that had built Mor-rioh'i, they kept a particularly reserved silence. Faro and Hauted spoke with equal caution of the Imperium's expansion and the new dawn it promised, while Mirmiet tried to correlate the xenos' songs with the Imperium's knowledge of the galaxy. Yarkyle tried to interject with biological questions, which were effectively swept under the table as somewhat below the present discussion.

But inevitably, the discussion circled back to why they were here.

"We would leave," Iaragbukaniath said, "flee to the fringes of the galaxy, for centuries at least. If it is assurance you need, we will provide it. If reparations, that too can be discussed. We will not trouble Shedim again, this much you can be certain of."

"And what of other human societies?" Akurduana, of the honor guard, asked. "There, on the galaxy's edge."

"We are offering you much, mon-keigh," Archaia spat.

"We are surrendering," Iaragbukaniath said, "the terms to be decided. If you wish oaths not to steal from humanity, that too can be discussed."

Faro did not quite know what to say. He had heard offers of surrender before, and if this one was not as unconditional as the conditions warranted, it was hardly exceptional in that. No one liked to accept defeat - not humans, not xenos.

Xenos. Beings to be wiped clean from the stars. From the eldar's appearance alone, as seen in picts, they hardly deserved that name - Faro had seen abhumans with greater deviations from the baseline. Their movements were a different matter. Speed, yes, but Astartes had speed too. Only Astartes and primarchs used that speed in the ways a human might, while there was always something off about the eldar, something clearly distinguishable -

Then again, the Sisters of Silence had that effect ten times over, and in a much more disturbing way.

Genetically, the eldar had very little in common with humanity; certainly, they were not of Terra. They were less human in that sense than even Faro himself - but by how much? Culturally, they expressed clear disdain for humanity; in Archaia's case, it seemed to verge on disgust. But that in itself was not enough - if this had been a set of human pirates, there would be plenty of room for negotiation. Stranger cultures had been accreted onto the Imperium.

Faro remembered his words to Valmar, when he had said it would get easier over time. How naive he had been! Now, he faced two choices, both promising in their own way, but neither entirely acceptable. He said a few light remarks as he thought on what to do.

Destroy them, most likely. They were a foe, if a foe he could respect, and there was too much blood on their hands to be washed clean.

But before Faro Aquilair could make up his mind, there was a disturbance, Parrhuane looking at a side of the shuttle which seemed to turn transparent in an instant, before turning back and letting out a shriek.

Archaia and Iaragbukaniath were already jumping back, holding their weapons defensively, outraged.

"Traitor!" Iaragbukaniath exclaimed, leveling his staff. "Why? Why attack us under truce, when you already have us so nearly at your mercy?"

Keyshen grimaced. "We did not attack!"

"We did not," Faro agreed, confused as to the eldar panic. "You are mistaken. I gave no order - "

Which was when his emergency vox beeped.

"Aquilair, this is Thrallas," it said. "The War-Born's primarch has apparently arrived in-system, and immediately launched an attack on the Craftworld."

Faro's hearts froze.

Another of his brothers, found, and the very first thing he had done upon taking command -

Faro brought his fist down on the table. It rang like a bell, hairline cracks spreading across its surface.

"Primarch Faro," the vox said again, in a deeper voice, "Minos here. What on Terra are the War-Born doing?"

Faro stepped back, his men backing away after him.

"I deeply apologize," he said, fury filling his hearts, the ice cracking with the sound of thunder. "For the actions of my disobedient allies. Thrallas, Minos, make sure the diplomatic shuttle is not fired upon while it returns."

They packed back into the Imperial side of the impromptu station, and flew back towards the _Gloriana_. Slowly - agonizingly slowly. Faro could only hear what was going on through vox-chatter, without any of the more precise sensors or displays to illuminate the situation.

What he heard was clear enough, though. Rakissen Legis, Primarch of the Thirteenth Legion, had arrived and led his Legion into a solitary attack on Mor-rioh'i. Through a combination of tactical brilliance that left even Faro slightly stunned and the eldar defenses being unprepared, and likely undermanned as well, the assault had not been stopped.

But given the sheer concentration of force arrayed against it, it was on its way.

"We cannot stand by," Obotran of the honor guard noted. "If we don't do anything, the Thirteenth Legion will be destroyed."

And Faro clenched his fist until it bled, because that was true, because his duty was clear, because his cursed brother had forced his hand.

"Solar Heralds, Luna Wolves," he said, "offer fire support to the Thirteenth, and prepare for engagement."


	85. 2-63: Severian 5

They were not at the tip of the spear, this time around.

That had not been their choice, of course. The War-Born had grown tired of waiting, and moved in themselves as the vanguard. Apparently, the upper ranks were grumbling about that, though the rumors about what was actually going on swirled contradictorily and unreliably, as usual.

Severian had been promoted to sergeant, in the aftermath, and had been kept busy working together with his new squad. He was, truthfully, ill-suited to the role; true, his battlefield exploits were apparently notable, but that said nothing about talent for command. And besides, his brothers always seemed to die around him.

He hadn't turned it down, though. This would be a new phase of his life regardless - nothing misplaced with carrying a new rank into it. If things really didn't work, he'd worry about it then.

Most of his squad was recently promoted from scouts; Hadagal Berloken was the exception, a massive, grim Cthonian that had also lost his squad fighting the eldar. Of the new blood, Nardu Shan was the most promising; he hailed from one of the Panpacific hives, and his bladework was brutally intense, without lapsing into berserker idiocy. The rest of them - well, they were young. They'd learn, at least those that survived.

And Severian forced himself to apply every effort to ensuring they did.

But for now, as explosions bloomed outside, as Sergeant Amroos steered the gunship between the enemy emplacements (a lot fewer of those than last time around, Severian noted), the sergeant went to the back half of the Stormbird. Mopaddal's squad was there, and Niteran's, but there was also a still, egg-like form, in which there was set like a pupil a sarcophagus containing life support systems.

"Yujavriel," Severian said, laying a hand on the cold metal of the Contemptor-pattern Dreadnought. "We are nearing insertion."

"Good," his friend rumbled, in a deep and rolling voice that was not his own. "For the Emperor, brother. It is about time we finished this war. For you, it must have been incredibly boring."

"Hardly," Severian said. "Integrating with the squad..."

"Ah," Yujavriel said, "so you ran them ragged in training. Well, we'll see whether it worked soon. Best of luck, Sev."

Severian felt like he should say something, but he didn't know what. So he only muttered an equal benediction to Yuj, and then returned to the squad as the gunship opened its ramp.

And then, it was battle again.

Not much battle, to be sure. The great corridors were empty, and Severian confirmed that other insertion groups were encountering the exact same thing. At one intersection, lit by a massive crystal chandelier, the eldar had constructed a barricade, and held out for a time, taking out two of Amroos's squad, until Yujavriel came in, his volkite culverins incinerating the xenos, and the Luna Wolves passed through to see what they had been guarding. It was a garden, as it happened, alien flora and seemingly non-sapient beasts, which at first came towards the Astartes with curiosity and then fled from the inferno they unleashed.

The place wasn't deserted, by any means. But the War-Born had been first, and the other two Legions were in truth on mop-up duty. The command straight from Faro of Cthonia was that the Craftworld, as the thing was apparently called, was to be taken intact; but 'intact' was a relative term. When, passing through a hall left by a massive explosion - either the War-Born's Destroyers, or the desperate defenders - they linked up with Captain Elamur, he indicated as much.

"Truth be told," he said, "we'll be sweeping sectors for a while, just to make sure none of the xenos survive. But the action's elsewhere. The Solar Heralds and the War-Born are both driving for the core, and we're stuck with cleanup..."

"As usual," Amroos grumbled.

"Hardly," Yujavriel answered. "Clean-up is a rare role indeed for our Legion. But we must not do any less than our utmost duty in it."

The captain nodded, and ordered Severian's squad to a wing that, in all probability, didn't hold any xenos in it. The Thirteenth had taken the bulk of the casualties; by now, there was nothing left for them but scraps of this victory.

But at the moment, even those scraps did not taste so sweet as they should have.


	86. 2-64: Marius 1

The primarchs met in the ruins of a palace.

The fractal front of the Thirteenth and the narrow charge of the Third converged on it. It had been a command center during the fighting, but between the Astartes, the Titans, and the defenders' own fire, not much remained of it.

Marius Gage took a deep breath as he came up to it, walking up towards his primarch with the core of his company. He did not take off his helmet, though he sorely wanted to. The eldar were hellishly mobile and prone to popping up behind the War-Born's lines. They were fighting better than even four months ago.

If Faro Aquilair had not, after a deliberate delay, offered support, the Thirteenth Legion would have been forced to retreat. And the xenos would not have made that cheap, either. Even as it was, thousands of Gage's brothers had fallen in the corridors of the Craftworld, a loss that the War-Born could absorb but one that could not be allowed to become regular. Some of Gage's own company were among them - Mpengat, Quasiroe, Squad Litteffet in its entirely.

Rakissen Legis turned his uncovered, but metal-tinged, head to Gage as he approached.

"Captain Gage," the primarch said with a sigh. "I am glad to see you. The pipe knots have been taken?"

"All four," Gage confirmed. "This war is over, my lord. Your plan has succeeded."

"At too high a cost," Rakissen said, frowning.

Gage weighed the words over in his head, surprised to find his primarch doubtful. "At greater cost than expected."

Rakissen paused, motioning Gage to follow him alone. "What would you say, Captain, if I said that ordering the assault was a mistake?"

"That this is for you to decide," Gage immediately said. "You have the full picture, as I do not."

"I did not have the full picture on the _Sethaln's Thunder_ ," Rakissen said. "I underestimated our foe, grievously. To say nothing of what Faro will think..."

Gage was unsure what to say for that. "You did, though so did we all. We will learn from it."

"Acceptable," Rakissen said with a nod, looking down at the gathering War-Born below the pitted slope they had climbed. "And far better than what some of the other captains said. My feelings do not need reassurance, Captain Gage."

Gage nodded, wondering who of the others would dare to act sycophantic in such a situation. Rakissen Legis was a masterful fighter and tactician, and despite what he had said, his assault on Mor-rioh'i had done ridiculously well compared to what anyone else could have designed - Gage would know, he'd spent enough time in simulations during the siege. He was an exacting commander, Gage could already see, yet though he demanded obedience he did not take it for granted. If he had been the sort of commander to demand fawning praise from his subordinates, the Thirteenth would have been the worse for his replacing Vosotho anyhow.

"What I need," Rakissen continued as they came to the top of the slope, "from you and from the rest of high command, is complete frankness - in private, that is."

Gage nodded. "Understood."

"Good," Rakissen said. "Will you serve as my equerry, then?"

Gage waited a moment before answering, so as to not snap back any misplaced platitudes. "I would be honored."

"Good," Rakissen quietly said, then turned around to look at the gathered Legion below. "My sons! Today we have won, and burned out this nest of xenos. Humanity alone shall rule the stars. As these eldar fell, so shall all foes that threaten the dominion of mankind!"

There were cheers - tired cheers, but genuine ones. And afterwards they came through the palace, moving forward in rather less organized fashion, until they came to the tip of the Solar Heralds' line and the primarchs met.

Faro stood between two Scout Titans, one of which seemed to have suffered severe burns from... a pit of lava, Gage would have thought, if this artificial world had possessed any. Its leg was mangled, seeming barely capable of walking. The other Titan had been hurt by more mundane ordnance, yet would still need extensive maintenance. Yet the figure of the Third Primarch between them seemed to have not a single scratch on his armor. Faro Aquilair stood, waiting, a judgmental look on his face, and waited for his brother to come to him.

Rakissen did, motioning the Thirteenth to stand back.

"Brother," he said, walking forward with an extended hand.

"Brother?" Faro asked, his tone that of smoldering embers. "After all this, you dare to call me brother?"

"I attempted to contact you," Rakissen said, "before the battle. I failed."

"There was an error," Faro admitted. "But tell me this, _brother_ : were you unaware of the flag of truce?"

"Truce with xenos?" Rakissen sneered. By now the primarchs were deliberately circling each other, Faro's hand near the hilt of his sword. "I had assumed it was a ploy. It seems I overestimated you. If anything, I spared you the dishonor of dealing with them any longer than necessary."

"Perhaps we could never have coexisted," Faro said quietly. Now it was his back that was to the War-Born's line, and Rakissen's to the Solar Heralds'. "Even if that were so - even if every word out of their mouths had been false - that would not justify what you did!"

"No," Rakissen said. "Victory did that."

"Victory?!"

"Victory," Rakissen said. "The victory you were unable to achieve for four months. A victory tainted by the fact that most of the xenos fled, but they only had that chance due to your incompetence!"

"You would have died if they had not fled. Along with all your Legion."

"Hardly." Rakissen stated Faro down. "You seem to have a great deal of fondness for these xenos, Faro."

"Respect, not fondness. They were a powerful foe, and wiser than you."

"That so-called wisdom didn't save them."

They stood for a while, facing one another, every breath audible in the sheer silence of the ruins.

"The Third Expeditionary Fleet," Faro said, "intended to tow the Craftworld to a safe location for study, and then delve into the Mpeshev Gap. I would not expect the War-Born to accompany us."

"And even now, you think we might wish to," Rakissen said. "We will head galactic southwest."

Marius Gage thought of the bonds forged by the Pacification of Luna, of his own friendship with Etrax, and of how quickly those links could be broken.

But he did not regret it, though he supposed some in both Legions would. There was always a price to leaving the past behind, but the essence of the Great Crusade was that it was worth it.


	87. 2-65: Ri 8

The government of the Imperium, Ri Domaan quickly learned, was a convoluted mess of bureaucracy and informality, a sprawling expanse far more varied than anything on Avalon.

It did have a center, though. The War Council of Terra convened increasingly infrequently, and usually via intermediaries, but its remit was universal. There was something nevertheless imaginary in it, precisely because it only met on paper.

The Throneworld could, in sum, more or less function without its Emperor for large spans of time, and with said Emperor on Crusade, it often did. But someone had to stand in the Emperor's place to actually guide it anywhere at all.

That person was Malcador the Sigillite.

Ri looked out from the Bhab Bastion, sweeping his eyes across the vast expanses of the Imperial Palace, searching the Sigillite out. The Palace was a continental region, intricately interwoven with cities and wilderness, everywhere under construction, shining gold and white - and for all of that, it was indisputably beautiful. It stretched to and beyond the horizon, various towers and valleys melding into a magnificently decorated whole. The Tower of Heroes stood out - jet-black, with a building-sized bell atop it, a dagger of death amidst a world of glory.

The Imperial Palace was a recent imposition, but for all of that, it was Terra, in a fundamental fashion. It encompassed the contradictions and doubts Ri had found within the Throneworld and the Imperium. Vast, artificial, built upon a foundation of ages to exert its will upon the stars...

It was apt indeed that the Imperium be built from here.

Ri knelt and felt through the stone and metal of the Palace, trying to psychically notice the flame that was Malcador. It was not easy - even now, passively, the Sigillite was an expert at concealing his presence - but after a few moments he determined that Malcador was somewhere in the network of dungeons below the Palace, busy with matters he would no doubt prefer to keep private.

Another source of unease, though he did not judge it. Daggers in the dark were an inevitable strategy; but he would never love them.

But if Malcador was distant, Ri Domaan could feel that Magos Mekessei was not. The Mechanicum Envoy had expressed a desire to meet with him, apparently, and he had put that meeting off for long enough. So after taking the cityscape in one last time, he turned back from the cliff, and walked down the staircase at an intent pace.

People bowed to him as he made his way down. One child ran up to him, pulling his scribe mother along, and Ri smiled as they came up, and answered the boy's questions about who he was and what he was doing, slightly to the mother's horror. It was unfortunate, how distant he was from the people of Terra; he might have tried harder to remedy that, but he was not quite so outgoing as to enjoy it, and besides which there were plenty of important personages to meet.

Many of which merited their status, though certainly not all. Malcador had spoken about how much trouble he had gone to in not promoting sycophants, but he had not tried to dissuade them. And - and if the Imperium was united by an ideology of Imperial Truth, there was a truly vast number of interpretations thereof. What truly defined the Imperium? Only, Ri Domaan sometimes thought, its armies.

"Magos Mekessei," he said once he arrived. "I am Ri Domaan. You wished to speak with me?"

The Magos was built like a snail, with her upper body set into a vast shell of iron. Another foreign aspect, though this one was not linked to Terra but rather its sister world. She extended something like a metal tentacle from it in greeting, the large appendage as thick as Ri's arm. "I did, lord primarch," she said. "I apologize for the difficulties in scheduling an appointment."

" _That_ fault is mine," Ri said. He was unused to overly precise scheduling. Life was ideally as regimented as necessary, and no more. Indeed, given the unpredictability of Warp travel, excessive organization would serve the Imperial 'bureaucracy' ill. A shipment of grain being a day late could not be allowed to let thousands starve, because shipments could always be late. "You have the time now, though?"

"I do," Mekessei admitted. "I had obtained permission to examine the Leng anomaly..."

"We may do so together," Ri offered.

Mekessei accepted, and for a brief while, as they walked to the gates of the Hall of Leng, they spoke of the Mechanicum. It was a strange sort of polity, a sub-empire built on a Quest for Knowledge not unlike the Great Work, but far more general, permeating every area of life. Nothing about the Mechanicum was distinct from their vision of progress, and yet -

And yet where the Great Work was finite, where the Emperor's dream was something the Emperor could steer, the Quest for Knowledge knew no limitations, was eternal by design. And so once again, Ri Domaan saw eternity and wondered whether he should shy away from it.

But he did not, because he did not wish to join those caged by the past.

The Hall of Leng was a long corridor, as dark as a moonless night and far more silent. Ri and Mekessei's conversation ceased instantly once they crossed the border, out of respect for the anomalous location; it would be wrong to fill this primordial darkness with even whispers. Space and time, Ri knew, twisted within; not an effect of the Warp, but something else -

"Ri," Melgiana had said, "I have found a place without time."

This was not the same anomaly as the one on Avalon, at the least because it did not resound within the Warp; but there was, he suspected, a kinship. Echo-like fragments of mirrored images, black corners hiding something beyond the mundane just beyond vision. The Emperor made measurements here; Mekessei tried the same, but quickly withdrew in frustration, unable to make sense of them. But Ri remained for a while, walking the non-Euclidean hall, which even his father apparently did not know all the secrets of.

How ancient was this place? How fundamental? Ri did not know. The tilting of reality unsettled even him, but it was not disgusting, as the rifts had been. This was not the baleful gaze of something that should not exist; this was nearer to a petrified tree standing alone in a wasteland. Or perhaps a lonely volcano, more precisely - he did not dare venture too deep into the hall, even though he was fairly certain it was safe.

But it was, nevertheless, a place to reorient his thoughts; because even here, where the fabric of the universe itself danced and twisted around him - even here, in this heart of shadows, he remained himself. Rotated, even stretched - but not torn, nor corroded.

When he came out, having spent hours by his reckoning in outer Leng, he bumped into Magos Mekessei's tail, making its own exit from the hall seconds earlier.


	88. 2-66: Valmar 9

Valmar Russ was no stranger to war. Fenris never left a man such. But while he had fought men and beasts before, he had never yet come to battle with xenos.

As the tide of the Imperium descended upon Xit, he wondered how different it would truly be. Orks were strong, and tough, but Astartes were stronger and tougher still. They were stupid, but not by so much as to be no threat. But - all of that was rumor, or to give it its formal name, intelligence. One knew a foe best when that foe was actively trying to kill them.

The II Legion was preparing for deploying in the outlying systems of the Wheel of Fire. Valmar had largely left them to their own devices, as he concentrated on this first assault. Afterwards, with the defenses of Xit - such as they were - broken, the Storm Walkers would be left with the mop-up and subsequent defense, while the Dragon Warriors swung around to the Blat system. As such, they had to finish this war fast.

"It is unusual," Vaughn had admitted during transit. "Many of us will be more used to being in the Storm Walkers' position."

The truth, as Valmar had explained, was that he trusted DuCaine to hold Xit, but felt the need to maintain direct command of the least predictable part of the campaign. DuCaine's and Kallhoth's strategic aims were far from easy, but largely set in stone. The Draka Fenryka's were not.

It wasn't that he distrusted the Legion Masters, but he had overall command, and thus this was his Legion's place.

So as the Stormbird descended, Valmar Russ took Xit in from above. It didn't look like much, by any account. The roads in disrepair, the settlements thrown together as if accident...

But the anti-air defenses, while fairly sparse, were quite functional.

They came down amidst an erratic barrage, and even though they were landing well away from the ork encampment, two of the gunships were hit, going down with their crew leaping out mid-swoop. Most of them would make it, Valmar hoped. His own transport was hit as well, but by glancing shots only. The primarch took a look at its complement as they neared the ground. Arnir was looking around with an unperturbed curiosity, his new light armor providing some added protection without sacrificing mobility (for Valmar, clad in substantially heavier armor, would certainly not be able to fly atop him in this battle). Geri and Hral were straining, sensing the battle to come. Jorin and two dozen other Draka Fenryka formed a command squad, waiting more patiently but no less eagerly.

Valmar jumped out of the gunship once it was hovering above the ground. On the hilltop, the orks were already spewing forth from their camp, a green tide rushing to seize the dropsite before the Astartes could regroup.

They would not.

"Draka Fenryka!" Valmar yelled, as the last Stormbirds set down. "We have been whetting our blades for long enough! Today, we return to battle once more! Today, we wet our blades with xeno blood! The fools rush towards us, seeking victory - but they will find only death! For mankind and for the Emperor!"

He pointed _Magnaruina_ , the hammer he had forged in the last weeks before departing Fenris, at the orks, and charged.

The jetbikes flew ahead first, and the tanks after them, shooting at the xenos' front lines. Arnir joined more conventional aircraft in raining fire from above. And Valmar Russ bellowed a challenge to the largest ork in the front lines.

The alien chieftain understood that much, at least.

They came together soon enough, the xeno's power-claw bashing against _Magnaruina_. By that point the xeno front lines had been thinned substantially, but the rear ranks were still pressing them forward in an unhealthy desperation to reach the fight. The chieftain roared as it tried to parry Valmar's blows, but while it was strong and fast, it could not match the primarch in either regard. A misaimed strike left its arm awkwardly stuck, and Valmar took advantage, howling as he smashed the ork's shoulder and knocked the arm and attached claw free. The ork tried to grab the weapon with its remaining arm, but before it could get a solid grip, Valmar brought _Magnaruina_ around and bashed its head in.

Nevertheless, the sheer number of the orks would take its toll if this turned into a battle of attrition. Glancing around, Valmar could see that much. The xenos were both strong and tough, and while the Astartes exceeded them on both counts, it wasn't by all that much.

"Fall back to outer line!" Valmar ordered via vox. The Draka Fenryka obeyed, as planned, and fired as they gradually retreated.

But while some of the orks eagerly rushed forward to pursue, the cohesion of the horde was already half-broken - most likely, because they had seen the gray pinpricks above their encampment, though too late to do any good.

The Storm Walker drop-pods slammed into the ground, gray-armored Astartes leaping out firing, and Valmar's orders to resume advance, to surround the orks and let none escape, were almost unnecessary. He swept _Magnaruina_ once again, into the ranks of the xenos, as the ring tightened, as the Storm Walkers took up firing positions upon the ork walls.

The orks didn't slow, though, even when their doom was obvious. Valmar Russ had to give them that much. He did not know if it was conscious bravery, willful blindness to their circumstances, or merely the instincts of a cornered animal; but the xenos fought to the end, without the slightest tinge of surrender or demoralization. They rushed forward to their deaths, with inhuman battle-cries on their lips.

Somehow that made them all the more disgusting. He had known from the briefings that there was nothing to respect in the orks, but now Valmar Russ realized that there was also nothing to pity.


	89. 2-67: Faro 15

Mor-rioh'i's halls echoed strangely, once emptied of their inhabitants.

Faro Aquilair walked them alone, at this point, and for the last time for a good while. The 'Craftworld' had been placed in orbit around Meben's star, guarded by a substantial fleet. It would be crawling with scholars before long - at least, those few scholars that passed the rigorous screening to set foot upon it. The psychic legacy of the eldar were nothing to be trifled with.

The Third Expeditionary Fleet was nearly ready to depart. It had been lessened. Rakissen Legis had taken his War-Born with him, as expected; Legio Fureans and substantial Imperial Army elements had joined them. More than a few commanders had expressed doubts about his competence; Faro supposed he should at least be grateful to his Medusan brother that Rakissen had done so to his face.

Perhaps the second volley of asteroids would have worked, of course. Perhaps the diplomatic solution would have. Faro did not know, would never know, and even now that memory caused his fists to clench in frustration.

But not for long. Not here.

Mor-rioh'i bore remnants of beauty and horror both. There were experimentation chambers, with abominations of flesh-stitching that were given a merciful death; there were pyramids of skulls, too, artfully arranged to memorialize the xenos' victories. But most of the art galleries were filled with nonviolent art, and most of the medicae chambers were genuinely medical in purpose. It was a world in space -

And now it was dead. It was dead, and the psychic memory of that was grand and oppressive, and impossible to ignore. The bonelike superstructure of the Craftworld seemed to hum with mourning, where it had not been collapsed during the fighting. It seemed to guide him, at times, towards fragments of beauty or tragedy, something to remember these eldar by.

Some had escaped, of course. Too many had escaped, as far as the Great Crusade was concerned. Faro would drive into the Mpeshev Gap, and seek to redeem himself there.

It was time for that, wasn't it?

"Lord primarch," came the voice of Ezekyle Keyshen as he walked up to Faro, "it's time."

Faro nodded. "Yes," he said, "it is. Let's go."

Keyshen shivered as they walked. "Truth be told," he said, "I have no idea how you can spend time here. Ever since we won the battle, the psychic aura..."

"It is melancholy," Faro admitted.

"It's like Hive Porilar without a divesuit," Keyshen said, shivering.

"Let it be a reminder, then," Faro said. "It is a useful one, in that sense. What was done to Mor-rioh'i may have necessary, but against human civilizations, we must take every measure not to allow... this... to happen. We must not strive to destroy the outposts of the human species, but to unify and improve them."

"You think Rakissen Legis forgets that?"

"I think Legis forgets a lot of things, or perhaps has simply never learned them. But I have never seen him fight a human world. No, I spoke in general."

Keyshen nodded silently, as they reached the elevator shaft that would lead them to the Craftworld's outer shell. Yes, Faro thought, there were many lessons to be drawn from Mor-rioh'i's fate. Not everyone would learn them, but he could not fail to.

There would be other campaigns, in the future, that posed even thornier moral dilemmas. There would be other brothers as bullheaded as Legis had been. But he was the first-found, and he could not allow himself to err as grievously as he had here.

Yet for all of that, as Faro Aquilair and the Third Expeditionary Fleet departed the Shedim Drifts to delve the Mpeshev Gap, the primarch could not help but admit to himself that he still did not know in which direction he had made a mistake.


	90. 2-68: Rakissen 8

Rakissen Legis had no shortage of regrets about the Shedim Drifts campaign, in the end. He still did not understand, even, what his brother had been thinking. As it was, while he had not violated the formal chain of command, he had upset the order of the Imperium.

No, he knew, he had to learn how to deal with equals. Not that he knew even now if Faro was truly an equal - which was itself a failing. Information was victory.

But he could not let his Legion see his regrets, because he could not let them taint their victory. The Shedim Drifts Campaign had to have been a triumph, if a costly one.

Well. No profit in dwelling on the past when no lessons could be drawn from it.

The data-slates were spread around Rakissen, forming an organizational chart that spanned nearly the whole room. Rakissen took another look at it and shook his head.

"This is far too complicated," he said.

Gren Vosotho looked at him with some surprise. "It is not unmanageable," the former Legion Master pointed out.

"No," Rakissen said, "not yet. But if the proliferation of subdivisions continues, then in a couple of solar decades, the Legion's organization will revert to complete opacity that even I would be hard-pressed to keep track of."

The issue wasn't in the official organizational complexity, of course. It was in the increasingly divergent traditions the individual companies embraced, traditions that were unwritten and sometimes almost unsaid. Some degree of specialization was of course desirable, but in the War-Born it had gone too far. That the Legion often fought in disparate theaters did not help; the diverse approaches of the companies and chapters were unpracticed in working together. At Mor-rioh'i, Rakissen had found little to rebuke his Legion about, but in the long run that could change.

The truth was, also, that the War-Born's recruitment led to even more doubt in Rakissen's mind about the formation of subcultures. Loyalty to one's company was not more important than loyalty to Legion and Imperium. Once again, it was merely an incipient problem, but one that had to be corrected.

So, during the difficult transit through the Mieaur Passage, Rakissen Legis developed the organizational scheme of the new Legion. A great many companies would be reorganized, a great many squads reassigned - though Rakissen made every effort to keep the squads themselves together, except where those squads' commanders recommended they be separated, because splitting battle-friendships was not his aim. Micromanagement, yes, but better to use it once so that the future rested on a firm foundation. Standardized sizes - squads of ten, thirteen line squads to a company, twenty companies to a chapter. Counting commanders and auxiliary personnel, a chapter had a nominal strength of three thousand, the Legion being divided into three such units - Vosotho to lead the First, Gage the Second, and a young captain named Nestor Tyrenn the Third. Not the seniormost commanders possible, but as he had learned on Medusa, experience was not always a virtue.

Certain companies would retain specialties, of course. But they would be standardized specialties, and the logistical assignments would reflect as much. The objective was interchangeability, so that sending four Line Companies and one Armored Company to take a world would not bear dramatically different results depending on which particular companies were chosen. At the same time, the Legion would retain the ability to fight almost any kind of war as well as Astartes should.

It was a lot to ask, but Rakissen knew his sons could match his expectations.

When the Navigators finally broke through the Mieaur Veil, and the Great Crusade came to noncompliant Biion, even the War-Born had grown impatient for battle, to say nothing of Legio Fureans and certain Imperial Army units. So once negotiations with the Jar-Ancients collapsed, Rakissen ordered a rapid campaign to seize the planet's nerve centers and bring it to immediate compliance. It was done within Terran days, though with more collateral damage than Rakissen had intended. And afterwards, in Laeosiit, the capital of Biion and one of the few cities on the planet that remained basically intact (and Rakissen would certainly have words with the generals about this) -

Upon the central plaza of Laeosiit, with the Aquila raised above the Mausoleum-Parliament building, eight and a half thousand Astartes knelt before their primarch in victory.

"You have fought well today, my sons," Rakissen Legis told them. "We are one world nearer Unity! As ever, we have fought well - but today shall be the last time we do so under that name, or in these colors.

"Sometimes, traditions devolve into self-destruction. Yet even when they do not, they always require a correcting hand. I have reviewed the Legion's record and organization, and while they are satisfactory, their efficiency can be improved.

"From this point, we are the War-Born no more - for though we still have our disparate origins, they do not define us. We must look not back into the past, but towards the future; not to our distinctions, but to that which unites us." He spoke for a brief while about this, about his vision of the Legion and about its reorganization, and about the new heraldry of the Legion, white armor bearing the symbol of a spear crossing a wheel.

"No matter from what world we hail," he concluded, "no matter what scars or trophies we have won - in the end, we are one! We are the Thirteenth Legion - from this day forth, we are the Adamantium Guard!"


	91. 2-69: Mathias 1

It had taken some time for Legion Master Mathias to gather the Seventh.

The Seventh Legion, the Imperial Fists, had been spread out over a dozen warzones in the gradual push through the Mittill Cluster. They had advanced slowly but steadily, as was their way, securing worlds, but not lingering there.

The news that their gene-father had been found, that the Seventh Primarch was waiting for them on Terra at the campaign's conclusion - that had been a distraction. A pleasant one, perhaps, but still a source of disruption, even disorder. It was all too easy for commanders, even normally reliable ones, to hear the news and rush forwards too quickly to hand off their work to the Imperial Army. Mathias was, frankly, disappointed in his men - they should have behaved with more composure. The end result was that finishing the conquest of Mittill had stretched on even longer than it'd needed to.

Then, there were the Imperial Fists attached to other Expeditionary Fleets. Recalling them, gathering the Legion in full at Beta-Garmon... that had taken more time still. But Mathias refused to heed the calls to rush the gathering.

His last act as Master of the Seventh Legion would not be to present it in anything less than perfect order.

And now they descended upon the muster fields of the Imperial Palace. Mathias could still remember the battles in those mountains, the ambushes and avalanches, the Legion's tattered banner standing in Zorangla Pass under the Ocal tribes' barrages... Now the mountains had become the heart of the Imperium, countless newly erected buildings scattering the plain with no need to consider defensibility. (The Inner Palace, of course, was a different matter entirely. While it was a work of art by any measure, and an attack on Terra was unthinkable, its defenses were emphatically active.)

Mathias and his command squad were the first to exit their landers, the Legion Master reminding his subordinates of the grid they were to land in. The ranks took shape, yellow-trimmed gray, Mathias making a brief inspection before returning to the front and waiting for the primarch.

There were a few minutes of hesitant waiting before the primarch's arrival. For a brief time, Mathias forgot to breathe, though his organs had handled far longer periods without air. But eventually, Ri Domaan emerged before them.

His hair was white, like Faro Aquilair's, albeit only shoulder-length. Like Faro, that did not make him look old; but though his face was unlined, he did not carry himself with Faro's lightness. Instead, he gave the impression of solidity, of a gradual but unstoppable advance. His dark eyes contemplated his sons, seeming to stare deep into them. There was no question at all of his identity; even aside from his height and presence, Mathias knew instinctively that this was the being whose gene-code had been used to make the Imperial Fists more than human.

His armor was (and the Legion's heraldry would become) a dirty yellow, with blue trim; something like a volkite caliver was mag-locked to his waist, but in his right hand he bore a helical staff rather than a weapon.

Mathias was kneeling before he entirely realized it. "My primarch," he said when Domaan did not immediately speak, "the Imperial Fists."

"The Seventh Legione Astartes," Domaan said thoughtfully, his calm voice effortlessly audible by the entire Legion. "My sons, whom I have never before met." He walked among their ranks as he spoke, looking at the various companies. "I know of your campaigns, from Roma and Galabaz to Camarain and Mittill. I have seen the lands you have pacified and the fortresses you have raised. Yet though I know you by your works, that is not quite enough to lead you to war. Before we return to the Crusade's fore, I will learn more of the Legion as it is; but the time for that will come later. For now, rise, my sons."

Mathias did so, as did his brothers, the Legion standing at attention, as Domaan continued speaking, his voice gradually gaining in strength, talking of Avalon and Terra and his philosophy and the Emperor's dream, in terms that were abstract but quite precise.

"Yet I know enough of who you are," Ri Domaan finally said, "to know what you must become. You are the soldiers of Unity, meant to secure worlds for the Emperor's dream. You were not meant merely to destroy the enemies of humanity, but to lay the foundations for those who will come after. Such is the duty you have committed yourself to, and I would not take it from you.

"But this is a new beginning, and one cannot ignore that. For if we are to be the soldiers of Unity, we must truly be a part of the dream you strive for; and if we are to lay the foundations for the Imperium, it would not do to have those foundations be only literal.

"You were named the Imperial Fists because it is as if the lands you conquered were grasped by the Emperor's own hand. It is a worthy name, but we must strive to be more than worthy. There is not very much that fits in a fist, after all. To grip the galaxy too tightly is to let it slip through our fingers, just as gripping it too loosely will make it fall apart. In this, as in nearly all things - but not precisely all, and that matters more than anything - there must be a balance. The Imperium must be eternal, but nothing eternal can be simple. We stand at the front of expansion, at the beginning of eternity. And thus, we must become the Imperial Harbingers - and we will find out in time, what that truly means."

And Ri Domaan brought his staff down, and his eyes flashed with the light of eternity.

"At ease," he said, and then he walked to Mathias. "Legion Master Mathias."

"My primarch," Mathias said, unsure what to think of the speech. "You are a psyker, my lord?"

"All the primarchs are, I would think," Domaan said, "even if not all are attuned to their gifts. We are the sons of the greatest mage known to history; how could we be made otherwise?"

They exchanged a few words, and then Domaan walked among the Legion, picking Astartes seemingly at random to speak to, regardless of rank. As he did, he also called on a variety of clerks, which distributed barrack assignments to the Imperial Fists.

Or the Imperial Harbingers now, he supposed. Their new symbol was to be a triskele, set within the laurels the Emperor had granted.

Even if the name the Emperor had also granted had been taken from them.

Mathias was not resentful of the changes Domaan heralded. If nothing else, the primarch was entirely correct that it was too early for such things. But as Mathias walked alone to his quarters, he still could not help but feel as if he no longer stood as firmly in life. The Legion would change, and whatever it would become - Ri Domaan was able, to be sure, and he would make a worthy force out of them.

But Mathias did not know whether it would be the Imperial Fists. Or, rather, he knew for a certainty that it would not be the Imperial Fists, and that was a source of unease within his hearts that day, despite the celebration. He did not truly know if many of his brothers shared it, and he did not know whether he worried more that they did or that they didn't.


	92. 2-70: Villyas 1

Captain Villyas Vubaza - Second Legion, Sixteenth Company - was not impressed by the world.

Not that there were too many impressive worlds, in the Wheel of Fire. The campaign was many things, but scenic was not one of them. Orks had a way of trampling the terrain into mud, just as they tended to do the same thing to humans and, for that matter, each other.

Still, Pexk was a dismal land even by Wheel of Fire standards. It was an innately flat world, one with the seas to erode land but without the tectonics to build it up. If the seas had been even a few meters deeper, it might have become a waterworld and therefore left mostly alone by the orks. Instead, its mud flats and halophyte swamps were interrupted by the xeno settlements, which were even worse than the land itself. The Second Legion valued novelty, and orks seemed, according to the Crusade's findings thus far, to be not merely one of the most common xeno species in the galaxy, but also the most monotonous.

Still, drudgery or not, they were strong foes, and the task of killing them had to be done, in this case by Vubaza's company.

Vubaza crouched in the ruined building, peering out to search for any orks. His hands grasped the crude xeno weapon, borne for the eventuality of actually finding any, an admittedly dangerous approach given that the thing was liable to explode at any point. Scouting had reported that they fought themselves often enough, despite their nominal political unity; and that -

Well, that had given Vubaza ideas.

The sound of the distant explosion was the signal. That would be Tahamo beginning the false-flag assault on the camp, which occupied an artificial hill. With it, the settlement was mostly empty of orks within minutes. "Move in," Vubaza ordered.

They didn't find any orks - though some of the other squads did - but they did find their smaller analogues. As they put them down, Vubaza noted that the plan had failed to take into account the sheer racket the ork weaponry produced. The alarm would be sounded soon enough, there was no real question of that. It would have been sounded already, if not for the fact that the sentry that could have done so chose to rush Vubaza's command squad instead, and got itself chopped in half for the trouble.

Ork technology was generally erratic enough as to blow up in the hands even of the xenos themselves, but they at least knew how to sharpen swords.

Such isolated engagements aside, they were busy with the task of liberating the xenos' slaves. Orks were not slavers in the way certain xeno breeds were, with most of their industry reliant on other species; but nevertheless, they did sometimes take captive those they did not kill.

The humans were a sorry sight, cowering in fear of the Astartes instead of coming out to their summons. Vubaza quickly took off his helmet, and ordered his men to do the same, just to have any chance of the people they were trying to save following them.

Chains could be broken easily enough, but the wounds, malnourishment, and disease that afflicted the humans... well, when Namboer suggested that they weren't worth the effort, Vubaza didn't rebuke the sergeant as might have been justified. Orks didn't rely on slavery, and for that reason they didn't invest effort into making their slaves' lives bearable.

"They're not much, but this is the mission of the Great Crusade," he instead said. "This is exactly what we're fighting to end, brother."

"Not all of them will make it to the shuttles," Namboer quietly said.

"No," Vubaza acknowledged. "But some will. And we will defend them as best as we are able, because that is what we were made for."

Namboer nodded. "As you command, brother-captain," he said, and albeit with a shake of his head, ordered his own squad to the rearguard of the convoy they were setting up. Perhaps half the humans had been convinced to join them despite the language barrier; they loaded as many up on vehicles as they could, and forced a quick retreat out of the settlement, leaving it burning behind them, some Astartes carrying humans on their backs. Vubaza didn't know why Namboer did that, sometimes, all the proud demonstrations of loyalty - they both knew that Namboer could have become captain in his place, if he hadn't failed on Aurage, and they both knew that Namboer blamed no one but himself for it, and as far as Vubaza was concerned that settled the matter.

Then again, maybe he was just too concerned with the matters in his company that remained rather less settled. Tahamo was still -

But now was not the time for such recriminations. Now was the time to run, to push the humans they had freed along, and to prepare for the orks falling upon them.

They took longer than Vubaza had expected. Tahamo had dispensed with the false-flag pretense, Vubaza saw, which was probably just as well; they didn't have enough vehicles to keep it up anyway. And then, as Vubaza would later learn, the orks had taken a wrong turn while looking for them. And so it was only in the last minutes before they reached the gunships that they were peppered with rockets. Vubaza helped push a truck that had lost a wheel to an accidental rocket (accidental because the enemy was making no pretense of aiming), and then they had arrived, Vubaza ushering the humans onto the gunships with desperation, Muloz doing the same via intimidation. Half of them were half-dead, but in the end they managed to fit everyone still alive in, and one by one the gunships took off for orbit. Vubaza's was the penultimate one, and even with the sick masses crowded in behind him, he could see Namboer on the last shooting the orks from the boarding ramp, as his brothers dragged an unconscious Astarte Vubaza couldn't identify at the distance into the ship.

When it was all over, as the task force returned to orbit, Vubaza considered their losses. Three Astartes were dead, and even if their gene-seed had been recovered, that did not answer the question of what for. The ork settlements had been leveled, and some of their inhabitants killed, but that did not shift the course of the war, especially with their involvement revealed. And the humans they had rescued... Vubaza wondered, really, how many of them would find a meaningful place in the Imperium. True, there was always a need for menial laborers, but they were meant to be more than merely alternate masters - not that what happened to them was the Second's concern regardless.

And nonetheless, Vubaza did not regret the raid, not really. Because, yes, the battle had taught them some bloody lessons -

But they had learned those lessons, and would yet use them to cleanse the stars of this green cancer.


	93. 2-71: Shadrak 2

The storm, Shadrak Smyth considered, was well and truly raised.

The Second was scouting and raiding the orks throughout the Wheel of Fire. The Eighteenth was cutting their supply lines across several nearby systems. But it had fallen to the Iron Tenth to hold Xit as a lure to call the xenos to them, much as they had on Rust.

Even Rust, however, had been a battle of a rather smaller scale.

Trails of fire filled the sky beyond the captain's magnoculars. It was less a meteor shower, and more an orbital bombardment. The ground shook from the impacts of the ork craft in an endless roil, even under the fire of countless defense installations.

Smyth felt an impact on his pauldron - light, probably accidental, but enemy fire nonetheless - and crawled back into the wall.

"How is it, Captain?" Sergeant Bomt asked him.

"Even worse than an hour ago," Smyth grumbled. "I'm going to talk to the commander."

Getting to the comms outpost was easy, the defenses built by the Storm Walkers ample protection from the orks in every fashion. Hailing DuCaine's command through the interference of enemy landings was another matter entirely.

"Lord Commander," Smyth said as soon as Mechanicum Adept Berelestenias - better-known to the Tenth Company as Stilt Ber, for the height of his artificial legs - had patched him through. "The situation is untenable. We need to deploy fighters."

"Not yet," DuCaine responded. "We need to draw them in first."

Smyth bit his lip as he tried to find out a response to DuCaine that was, if not polite, at least not insubordinate. "Legion Master, they're orks. A fight will still draw them in, and if we don't launch now the aeronautica will be useless."

It wasn't that Valmar had given them an unreasonable assignment. But perhaps he had merely seen Rust and asked the Storm Walkers, now far stronger than back then, to replicate their greatest victory on a larger scale. It was a prospect that had persuaded DuCaine, evidently enough, but the analogy was imperfect. Notably, during Rust they'd held orbital superiority, and could hammer into the xeno lines without difficulty. Here, they were attempting to summon an entire cluster's worth of orks onto one world.

If they didn't thin the horde out, there was no chance of the Tenth Legion surviving this.

Valmar knew what he was doing, of course. The primarch had left no doubt of that in Smyth's mind. The Tenth could hold for a long time, and could call in the Eighteenth to serve as anvil if things got truly desperate.

Only, Shadrak Smyth realized in an instant of clarity, while Valmar Russ had evidently learned a great deal about Amadeus DuCaine's martial record, he hadn't properly accounted for the particular nature of the Legion Master's pride. Some warriors could not be dissuaded from charging at the first sight of the enemy. DuCaine couldn't help but wait for the last moment.

"We'll get them, Captain, don't worry," DuCaine said languidly. "Just not yet."

Smyth grimaced. "Legion Master," he said, "this is going to get us all killed. We need to launch the fighters - if not, we'll never get the chance. You're being too clever here - this isn't Rust, not exactly, and trying to replay the battle will lose it."

"That's insubordination!" Salitas suddenly protested.

There were a few seconds of static, and Smyth considered whether he'd overstepped his limits. He was increasingly sure that he was in the right strategically, but then he had all but called his commander an idiot.

There were a few seconds of static before Smyth realized that, actually, what he was hearing was the Legion Master's laughter.

"Well," DuCaine said, "if you're being so insistent, I suppose you can launch your company's aeronautica. And I'll consider launching the other fighters as well, because you're not wrong that there's a great many orks here. That might have, of course, been pointed out without implying that I didn't see them."

"I will endeavor to be more diplomatic next time," Smyth said.

"You won't," DuCaine cut back. "And if by some chance you genuinely did, it would be for the worse. Listen, Shadrak, there's a great many people that will tell me at every opportunity that my plans are brilliant even if they'd get my entire Legion killed. And there's a lot of Astartes under me that will tell me in private exactly what they think, either straight-up or in veiled metaphors, but will publicly stand behind my every order. And then there's people like you, who can think for yourself about what to do but not always about when to open your mouth. And the truth is, Captain Smyth, that I need all of those sorts in the Legion, so long as I know which are which. Because I'm not one of the primarchs. They can do everything without even trying, and sometimes I'm jealous as all hell of that, but that also means that they don't need more than a pinch of advice, and I'm not quite sure about whether they take in that pinch. Me? I'm good, but sometimes I need a wake-up call. And besides, honesty's always good to hear."

There was a pause after that rant, as the vox really did begin to break up.

"All companies, launch air forces," DuCaine ordered when he came back online. "Let's go kill some orks."


	94. 2-72: Ri 9

Ri Domaan's return to Avalon was no less grand than his departure, and possessed of an entirely different spirit.

Then he had been the son searching out his birthright, the Archdruid forced to abandon his charges. Now he was the general visiting a fortress, the traveler briefly returned to a home too small to hold him.

Not that Avalon had shrunk any, in his absence; and in another world, he might well have let his horizons expand more slowly. But time had conspired to bring him to this juncture, instead.

He landed on the shore facing Taba. Avalon was a large world, yet it was to that same shore he returned again and again, for the moments when his path and that of Avalon changed direction; and he would not be surprised if it was that shore and that island which would watch him fade from life, when that hour came.

Such thoughts were not so distant as they could have been. For Ri called for a conclave, immediately upon landing, of the druids of Ysc, bringing them together with Imperial aircraft, and he proclaimed there that he was laying down the mantle of Archdruid, and granting it to Anaka, for it was unfitting for one not walking upon Avalon's soil to bear that title. In the Imperial fashion Anaka would be a governor, and when her time passed, the druids that followed her. She would hold no more formal power upon Avalon than Ri Domaan had as Archdruid, but she would have authority over the boundary between the people of Avalon and the rest of the Imperium. It was not that the druids would have a monopoly of Imperial technology, for such a course would breed too much resentment, but that they had (and this was made clear to all the people of Avalon) the remit to judge how such technology could be exchanged, especially when it regarded weaponry. Domaan himself dyed his robes a lighter blue, but did not burn them, for there was no doubt in anyone's mind that he would return on occasion, and be listened to as befitted his legend when he did.

And with all that done, and Avalon's course set, Ri Domaan took to the more difficult task before him, namely dealing with the Imperial Harbingers.

They were not like the Rout, at least. They were taciturn, grim, and disciplined, all to a fault. Certainly, Ri Domaan could see the relation to his own personality in them. But perhaps because of that, many among them were unsure about the changes that would come to the Seventh Legion, and more unsure still because those changes were themselves somewhat undetermined, as of yet.

Ri had tried to speak with them during transit, the commanders and the line Astartes alike. Accounts of campaigns and of principles were duly provided, but he still felt as if he were missing something. He confessed as much to Captain Qoalar, one of the more insightful officers in the Seventh, at one point.

"I think," Qoalar said after some minutes' thought, "that what you are missing is yourself. I do not think any of the Legions are complete without their primarchs."

Perhaps that was true, though Ri was not sure if former Legion Master - and current First Captain - Mathias would agree.

Still, now that they had arrived upon Avalon, there were two matters to settle. One was to begin the construction of a fortress-monastery. After some consideration, Ri plotted a great ship, a floating city that would travel the vast oceans of Avalon and carry the Legion's garrison with it.

"Why not build it on one of the uninhabited isles?" Mathias asked him. "Or in orbit?"

Ri considered it a minor victory that his second finally trusted him enough to ask this directly. "I do not wish to isolate the Legion too greatly from the people of Avalon," he said. "Or, perhaps, it is more accurate to say the reverse - that I do not wish to isolate the people of Avalon from the Legion that protects them. Your brothers will be the most visible symbol, and perhaps the only visible symbol, of Imperial authority on this world. It would not do for you to be hidden."

Mathias accepted that, though Ri was not certain whether it was in the same spirit he had meant it in. "But what of recruitment?" he asked.

That, in turn, led Ri Domaan to carefully analyze the Seventh Legion's recruitment methods, and conclude that they were completely insane.

It was difficult for a world such as Avalon to supply the recruits for an entire Space Marine Legion, true. Terra, or Cthonia, could do so far more easily; the Seventh would likely supplement its recruits from conquered worlds, as was its right.

But.

"To reach a size comparable to that of the current First Legion," Ri Domaan said, "with current recruitment yield, would require multiple Hive Worlds, perfectly scanned, to serve as recruiting worlds. In practice, it would require more worlds than are currently compliant to be sustainable."

The council - captains of the Legion, though Ri had in the main selected them for balance rather than out of seniority - was silent until it became clear Ri wanted someone to speak up.

"My lord," Katrenom, newly promoted to captain by Domaan upon his assumption of command, ultimately said, "our gene-seed has a low rate of successful implantation."

"Yes," Domaan acknowledged. "It is a painful and dangerous process, even moreso than for other Legions. I understand this. But if this is so, it would normally mean that other standards should be lowered to compensate. Perhaps only one in a hundred can become an Astarte, perhaps only one in a thousand - but surely more than one in a million."

"Lower recruitment standards?" Qoalar asked. "That will create its own troubles."

It would, of course. But Avalon - or even Avalon and Terra combined - simply could not support the Seventh as it currently existed; and even for the entire Imperium it would be a heavy burden to bear if the Legion was to be expanded.

"I am not proposing removing the trials," Ri Domaan said. "Merely lessening their number." Those without resilience would not survive implantation; those who lacked strength, meanwhile, would gain it from their enhanced bodies regardless. It was skill and intelligence, Ri explained, that had to be selected for.

His sons obeyed without question. That was troubling, in and of itself, since Domaan knew they wanted to object. There was no other way, though. It was not impossible to set up an Imperium-spanning recruitment network, but it needed a Hive World at its core, and Avalon would not become one, and indeed Domaan would prefer that no world would become one. It was one thing for a world to be artificial under the weight of history, as Terra was. But to sculpt a planet entirely for the sake of habitation was - sacrilegious, or if the Imperial Truth forbade such concepts, then arrogant.

And to continue as at present? Ri could not accept that. "It is not a matter of glory," he said. "It is a matter of duty. The Imperial Harbingers must play their part in building the Imperium, and I would not leave that to others, no matter how confident I may be in their ability. If we remain a small Legion, then we leave the bulk of our work to the other Legions. They are capable of bearing the extra burden, of course. There are eighteen of them, after all, each one capable in their own way. But to do so would be to stand by, and none of us were meant to stand by."

And at that, at last, the high command of the Imperial Harbingers applauded. There were no cheers, but there were nods, and ideas for recruitment logistics, and a great deal of determination; and for the first time, Ri Domaan truly felt that they were not only his sons, but his Legion.


	95. 2-73: Uenuku 3

The trials were held far above Avalon, so high in the sky as to pass beyond it entirely. Around them there was only the void and the rifts, and below them there was Avalon as if laid out on a map.

But they were given little time to stare. The trials tested skill at arms, of course, and in those Uenuku performed well but far from brilliantly; but that was far from the only measure. They were taught the Imperial language, called High Gothic, and those who were slow to learn it were sent back; they were also tested by simply being left alone, for weeks on end, in artificial environments like nothing on Avalon, and told to survive. A cry for help meant defeat.

In those first few months, those who failed were allowed to return to Avalon, marked in shame but alive and usually unharmed. One by one, Uenuku's friends were sent back, for failure on unspecified criteria, until only Uenuku himself and Mainn remained of those he knew.

And then, there came time for the final trial.

"This will be a mock battle," the sergeant told them. Queil Iex was a brutally scarred Astarte, who reacted to the initiates at first with indifference and then, as they were fewer and fewer, with increasing bitterness. "It will be the last battle you will ever fight that is truly safe. Even if you try, I suspect you won't get yourself killed here - though if you're stupid enough, I'll do it myself."

It wasn't an entirely empty threat - Iex had killed a boy named Athatar on the second day, for disobeying his instructions and trying to do something with the ship's controls. Then again, if an untrained boy had tried to take the helm of a ship against orders, many captains Uenuku had served under would have done the same.

They were allowed to form into pairs by choice - Uenuku and Mainn partnering, of course - and then the pairs were randomly assigned to two sides, twenty against twenty. "The side that wins will be judged on their performance in the battle," Iex said. "Assuming you helped your side more than hurting it, though, everyone on it is going to pass the trial, Emperor help us. The losing side will be sent home in its entirety. And if you think that's unfair, then you really should have failed the basic intelligence tests, because you've clearly learned nothing in your time here."

Imperial Harbingers fought for Legion and Imperium, not for themselves. That had been made clear early. They were a brotherhood, of choice if not of blood (though partially of blood as well, in a fashion that Uenuku only somewhat grasped), and their cause was as bound together as any crew's.

"Alright," Mainn said once their team was on the shuttle. "What's the plan?"

"We need a leader," one of the knightly scions - Naaot - said, which set off a chain of arguments. It took a couple of minutes for it to become completely evident that this discussion would go nowhere.

"We choose the leader by lot," Uenuku suggested. "We have no time for anything better."

Not everyone was happy at that, but there was no time to waste. It was Whaill, a large kid, quiet and not easily suited to command, but he shrugged and accepted the role. "First off, we stick mostly together," he said. "Defeat in detail and all that. Then - any ideas before we see the battlefield?"

They had several. But none lasted long after their arrival at the testing grounds. It was a complex labyrinth, but that wasn't the strange aspect; rather, it was that they floated, as if the world couldn't decide which direction was down.

They reveled in this for a few moments, before Whaill's soft voice brought them back to earth, metaphorically if not literally. They crept through the maze, covering each other, from time to time detaching scouting parties. It was on Uenuku's first such party that he first noticed the enemy.

It wasn't any sort of brilliant tactical maneuvering, really, nor any magnificent display of shooting. It really came down to Uenuku's quick reaction time, Mainn's signal, and their successful mapping of the maze. They were both shot within moments, but because the enemy had chosen a static base, they were able to see, floating immobilized, as their teammates surrounded and slowly constricted the enemy. At the very end, it was a close thing; only Naaot was left 'alive', but the other team had been herded into a corner and downed completely.

Iex was less than happy, but grudgingly passed eighteen of them, Uenuku and Mainn included. "Died quickly, but usefully," his evaluation read. They had no intent of letting that happen in reality, but Uenuku supposed he'd always known it for a possibility.

The audience that came after was held in a massive amphitheater, with dozens of groups, some (it turned out) from other worlds in the Avalon sector, gathered to hear the primarch himself. Ri Domaan was different than Uenuku remembered him, somehow larger and more glorious in person than even in memory, perhaps because he was no longer restraining himself.

"You have passed every trial set for you," Domaan said. "You have proven yourself worthy of becoming Imperial Harbingers, and your genetics are compatible with this. Yet that does not mean all of you will do so. The process of implantation is dangerous, and most of you will die during it, rather than becoming Astartes.

"If any wish to turn back now, you may do so with your head held high. It is not failure, and it is not cowardice. To begin the implantation process means likely death - and one that you cannot control, that is up to sheer chance.

"So ask yourself, now, if you are willing to die for nothing, and to - with certainty - leave behind everything you know, all the people you love, any chance of raising a family, and the semblance of an ordinary life. And if you are not, you may return to your homes and families, honorably."

Some did. Uenuku was surprised at that, in truth. Why come so far, to the brink of a new world, only to turn back at the precipice? They did not fear for their lives - they would not have made it this far if they did. Perhaps it was vanity, the belief they were capable of more.

Uenuku knew, deep within his heart, that they were not. If they truly did not wish to ascend, they should not have wasted their time.

It was only when the implantation process, and the impossible pain associated with it, began that he began that he started to wonder if those that turned back had had the right of it after all; and after Mainn died, his doubts grew twice as dark, so that he could only barely force himself to keep going in his friend's memory. The Legion's Apothecaries would say that they had written him off three times, before his Black Carapace was finally implanted, and Uenuku himself wondered if they were understating it -

But for now, basking in the brief moment of personal triumph, he and the others from Avalon who had chosen to undergo implantation were told to choose their path-names; and among the many who chose martial or cosmic terms, Uenuku instead chose to become Uenuku Azant - or, in Old Leic, simply Uenuku of the Blue.


	96. 2-74: Mathias 2

Avalon was the sort of world that Mathias would have found of little special note had there not been a primarch found upon it. Ocean-covered, relatively peaceful, free of xenos. It had its dangerous wildlife and its proud histories, but then so did most worlds.

Looking deeper did reveal its oddities, many of them psychic - a complication of its own, that. Mathias, for the most part, didn't trust psykers; but Domaan had spoken truly enough when he had pointed out that the Emperor was one himself. Loyalty took precedence, as for the Emperor so for his son.

There were other things too. Despite the lowering of standards, gene-seed implantation rates were no worse for Avalonian recruits than for Terrans. But from what Mathias heard, there was still a difference of character. Greater individuality, perhaps.

Nonetheless, though it was too early to tell, Mathias did not think they would tear the Legion apart. He had clamped down forcefully on some of his subordinates, which had denigrated the new recruits among themselves - true, they were untried, but not all of them would fail the test of battle when it came. And division in the Legion between old and new - well, that simply could not be allowed.

So Mathias was ambivalent about Avalon. And he had the time to dwell on that ambivalence, in the months after their arrival. That was not to deny that there was plenty to do. Part of it was herald missions, traveling across the planet and familiarizing the population with Astartes. Part of it, too, was helping to direct the fortress-monastery's construction. On a world such as Avalon, Mathias supposed, it really was logical to situate it on the ocean. He wondered whether he should have seen it himself.

But there was also the matter of reorganizing the Legion.

Their armor was repainted a yellow-brown color, with deep blue trim. It was a far lesser change, in Mathias's opinion, than the name and sigil; in the end, their various honors were translated with at most symbolic changes from one coat of paint to the other. Some of the Legion's companies were slightly shuffled, so as to preserve a nominal size of fifteen hundred Astartes, and a senior and junior captain were appointed in each; reinforcements from Avalon would be assigned to even the companies out further. But the position of most Imperial Harbingers on the organizational charts didn't change over the course of these reforms. Domaan's grip was loose.

Loose - but, Mathias soon realized, not nonexistent. Because the organizational chart wasn't the entirety of the Legion. Domaan encouraged, and sometimes practically forced, his sons to deal with the population of both Avalon and the fleet; he encouraged, too, memoirs and other non-combat studies. The boredom helped with that as well. The Imperial Harbingers would return to the Crusade once this recruitment cycle was completed; given the sizable reinforcements they would thus gain, Mathias understood his liege's reasoning, but as the months passed he recognized within himself an impatience that he did his best to suppress.

It was only on the day that the message from Terra came that he realized that Domaan shared some of that impatience as well. The primarch summoned him and several other captains to the temporary strategium, and informed them that he had been called to the Sol System personally, to attend a council of war.

"The Emperor is planning strategic changes in the Crusade," he said. "The four primarchs are called to Ganymede. More than that, I do not know." His brow was furrowed with dissatisfaction.

"And we are to wait here for your return?" Qoalar - the senior captain of Seventh Company, and a favorite of the primarch's - asked.

"The recruitment cycle is nearly complete," Detscher of the Second said.

"Yes," Domaan near-groaned, "and you know that I tire of waiting, though perhaps not so much as some of you. I know that the Crusade calls, with all the wonders and horrors of the universe. Avalon is my home, but I have already said farewell, to delay now is merely to stretch that out... But my duty is to join the council on Ganymede and meet my brothers, and your duty is to wait for me on Avalon until we are ready."

And in the end, that was that. Because despite Ri Domaan's - for lack of a better term - disorganization, despite his sometimes incomprehensible goals, he was Mathias's gene-father, and he understood as well as and better than his sons the importance of duty.

They were all servants of the Imperium, in the end, and that meant being servants of humanity. And humanity was a master infinitely more complex and less constant still.


	97. 2-75: Iacton 6

Forcing the Mpeshev Gap had been projected to take a solar decade. Those projections, however, had been made for an Expeditionary Fleet not led by a primarch.

Iacton Qruze knew they would be done in less than a year, and that despite the region having twice as much population than had been thought.

Faro Aquilair was known as a brilliant tactician (as befitted a son of the Emperor), but before, his achievements had been magnificent but not impossible. But after Mor-rioh'i, the primarch had responded by driving both himself and the Third Expeditionary Fleet to the very edge of their abilities, and somehow turning that into victory with minimal casualties, some worlds conquered without even having time to warn their allies that they were under attack, others intimidated into submission by transient power displays, and of course many surrendering to the primarch peacefully with the mop-up left to the iterators. Qruze did not quite understand how Faro had done it, and he suspected he was not alone.

There was no secret of what had catalyzed the primarch's desperation, though. That was obvious to everyone in the fleet, even if very few would dare to bring it up before Aquilair.

There were absurd rumors that Qruze had overheard about the details. Seditious rumors, really, which he had been forced to correct. But even among the high command, there were voices that were raised on Legis's side of the incipient feud, in the wake of the battle. "Negotiating with xenos?" Berabaddon scoffed. "If he wasn't a son of the Emperor, we'd call that treason."

Berabaddon was Cthonian, as the name implied, one of the very last intake before Faro's discovery. Unlike most of the Cthonians in the Legion, though, he seemed to have actual affection for his homeworld, an emotion that Qruze could not truly understand despite the fact that it should have been a universal thing. So his words were spoken out of a well-understood distaste for Aquilair, one that was almost tongue-in-cheek. But there was quite a bit of muttering among the other captains, not all of it dissenting.

"There are numerous examples of rogue traders negotiating with xenos," Qruze felt the need to point out. "Furthermore, brief parleys in battle with xenos are far from unknown, and a brief parley is what this was. Faro Aquilair had in any case prepared for the expected breakdown of diplomacy with the asteroids - "

"Which failed the first time," Andae interrupted.

Qruze scowled. "In any case, diplomacy was one avenue to securing the Shedim Drifts, and we cannot know whether it could have led to an acceptable settlement because Rakissen Legis launched an attack without consulting Aquilair."

Tonis scowled. "Instead of greeting his brother, he's off dealing with xenos. Is this the leader we wish to follow?"

At this point Legion Master Minos stood, and sent a furious glare at the table. "We follow only one leader," he said. "That is the Emperor of Mankind. You have only one commander; and that is me. And neither are up for debate. This is not a gang, Cthonian or otherwise; this is an army, one of the finest in the galaxy, or at least it's supposed to be. It is assigned to the Third Expeditionary Fleet, under the command of Faro Aquilair; and unless that command is altered by either Faro or the Emperor himself, _it will remain thus_. Is this clear?"

Minos's command was, of course, obeyed. It helped too that it soon became clear just how many Astartes the War-Born had lost in the assault on Mor-rioh'i. But in truth, the mental wounds of the Shedim Drifts, of four months in a futile siege, could only be salved by victory.

Fortuitous, that Faro Aquilair gave it to them.

But there was still a trend that Qruze could not help but notice, during Mpeshev Gap campaign, and that he was deeply disturbed by. It was an increasing factionalism, a sense of pro-Faro and pro-Rakissen parties emerging among the Legion. Not formally, of course, and no one suggested disobeying the Legion Master. But still, even the seed of factionalism was something utterly unacceptable for a Legione Astartes. Rivalry between the Legions and their primarchs was one thing, and for that matter some degree of rivalry between companies was understandable if not desirable, but this was something unacceptable. For now any discontent was latent, and suppressed further by cheap victories. If that flow ceased -

When Minos invited Qruze as his equerry for a council upon the _Gloriana_ , he took the opportunity to speak of all this with his commander. Minos was far from blind, of course, but the Legion Master could do little. "There's fewer of them, at least," he said. "Even Berabaddon's accepted that Aquilair's at least competent. Hopefully it'll all blow over."

The _Gloriana_ was still plenty ostentatious, not so richly decorated as to be absurd but adroitly toeing that line. The Luna Wolves were quickly ushered to a sanctum near the center of the ship, evidently a sign that the conversation to come would be substantially confidential.

Faro did not tarry when everyone - three Imperial Army generals, three representatives of the Titan Legions, the Luna Wolves, and himself with Thrallas and Keyshen - was seated.

"The Emperor calls me to Ganymede," he said. "It will be a brief council of war, after which I will return to Crusade; but for a time, this fleet shall be without my command."

A brief council of war was one thing, but the Warp journey to Terra was far from brief. The Third Expeditionary Fleet would be on its own for months.

"You are leaving us, lord primarch?" General Fashatan asked in seeming shock. "There's no way we can complete the campaign in time without your leadership!"

"The Mpeshev Gap?" Minos sarcastically asked, leaning forward. "Why, yes, we may be a few days late in its completion, relative to the initial timetables. Maybe even a full week."

"The campaign is nearly complete," Princeps Enkhel Bhai commented blandly. "Military operations will be almost unaffected by Primarch Faro's absence as strategist."

"And I'm sure you can manage without my abilities on the ground," Faro finished with a small smile. "Seeing as you have several Titan Legions. As to diplomacy, the remaining polities have all already refused compliance at least once. I wouldn't lose any sleep over illuminating them by force, if it's necessary. Which it likely will be."

"The Mpeshev Gap will be completed, then," General Jaerale spoke up, "and then I assume it's on to the expanse beyond. Will Thrallas receive fleet command in the meantime?"

"No," Faro said, Qruze noting that Thrallas had been expecting this. "Legion Master Minos will have overall authority over the Expeditionary Fleet during my absence. First Captain Thrallas will, of course, have command of the Solar Heralds Legion in this theater."

"It is an honor," Minos said with a bow.

Qruze saw what Faro had done easily enough. It was a reward of sorts, for Minos's loyalty earlier; and it was also a demonstration to all that Faro valued the Luna Wolves' contribution, rather than seeing them as merely disposable allies. It was a straightforward approach, but that did not make it any less effective.

But while Faro's command was justified, and while Iacton Qruze knew his Legion Master was the best choice for commanding the fleet for these months, it was still worth noting - not as a good thing, but perhaps as an inevitable thing, in the politics of Crusade - that it had been found necessary.


	98. 2-76: Valmar 10

The relief of Xit was a close thing.

As the Second Legion under Kallthoth scattered around the Wheel of Fire, dealing the orks a thousand pinprick blows, as the Tenth under DuCaine held Xit as a challenge to the xenos, Valmar led the fleet of the Eighteenth, with the support of the Saturnine Fleet and several battlegroups of the Imperial Army, to cut the orks' advance to pieces. In the Bikk Pass they struck the ork armada from behind, completing the arc that had begun at Xit, and in a fierce naval battle had decapitated that prong of the horde. 'Naval' was, of course, somewhat of a misnomer. For the most part, the battle was waged in a manner Valmar was entirely unused to - calculations of trajectories too distant to see, vast quantities of munitions expended into the void, even the ships themselves bigger than anything than anything that Fenrisians could have conceived.

But there was one aspect that reminded Valmar a great deal of his past, and that was when the various broadsides failed and boarding actions began, in one direction or another. No room for mercy, in such clashes - under the low ceilings, oceans of blood spilled forth, bulkheads shattered under axe blows, and fires spiraled out of control. All that was missing was the waves to rock those ships, but then the orks' engines caused plenty of vibrations on their own.

After the Bikk Pass, the Draka Fenryka hit staging ground after staging ground, delaying the orks, at times deflecting their assaults. But the xenos kept coming, beyond not only fear but reason. Valmar heard from Xit that DuCaine was fighting back with every stratagem at his disposal, bombing the orks into dust and launching vast counter-assaults, but communication was sparse, and sometimes he had cause to wonder if Xit had fallen without his knowing it.

But then, if it had, the orks would have stopped.

Over the months, it got easier, the flood slowing to a drip. The Navigators were exhausted, _Magnaruina_ had been dented on a titan-like construct, two companies were cut off and trying to rally to DuCaine - but they were winning. Kallthoth's efforts had reaped their benefits, the orks disoriented and seemingly confused, more than anything.

Which was when the summons from Terra came.

"We could ignore it," Jorin said when they met in the _Klostzatz_ 's strategium to speak of it. "The Emperor is no fool, he'll understand we can't stop now."

"He only calls for the primarch," Niticus pointed out.

That was true, but Valmar knew all too well a commander's importance in matters like these. The war could not simply be picked up by Vaughn as if nothing had happened. The Draka Fenryka had learned a great deal in the campaign, to be sure. With every battle, they fought more and more like a single whole, the Terran and Fenrisian components of the Legion melded together, increasingly comfortable with their role. But to leave now was still unthinkable, a point that Vaughn too emphasized.

As his sons argued, Valmar turned his eyes to the charts. They were far more detailed now, the mapping of the Wheel of Fire achieved - bloodily, yes, but then how else was it going to happen? The fog of war still lay heavy on much of the cluster, but no longer suffocating as it had been at first. It was the orks now who were wandering into Imperial ambushes, not the reverse.

And Valmar realized what he had to do.

"I will depart," he said, "but not immediately. We will win the war first."

There was silence, for a moment.

"Sky King," Jorin said, "that's going to take years."

"The extermination of the orks will take years," Valmar accepted. "But their forces are already breaking. Not as men would, not even as beasts would, but they are breaking. We continue to Kard, and then scatter the Saturnine Fleet and Imperial Army around the main arteries, while we continue on to Xit to relieve the Storm Walkers."

The plan was an ambitious one, mostly because it was still early for it. Vaughn was especially skeptical. They could have continued to bleed the orks dry, to build on their successes -

But Valmar knew it was a necessary risk, and a worthy one.

They won at Kard, and then the fleet of the Eighteenth Legion struck for the Xit system. They lost a cruiser, and several lesser ships, on entry to the sheer density of ork ships and wreckage (not that there was a huge difference between those two, for the xenos) around the jump point. The _Klostzatz_ ended up with a new prow decoration that pierced several decks, killing two dozen crew members. But they were in, and their weapons were already charged, and they crashed into the xenos like a bludgeon - a bludgeon that was admittedly very focused on maintaining its structural integrity. And meanwhile, on the ground, Amadeus DuCaine raised the Storm Walkers for a final counterattack.

Hammer and anvil, against overwhelming numbers. If the orks had focused their efforts on either one of them, they might well have stalled the battle. But instead they divided themselves, and instead of the battle of attrition it could have been, Xit's fate was decided in a single day of fire.

They met on the surface, afterwards. Amadeus DuCaine found Valmar Russ beside the corpse of the enormous ork warlord, who had once ruled most of the cluster, which the local wildlife was already beginning to gnaw, though Arnir and the wolves had spurned its fungoid flesh. In the end, the wounds Valmar had dealt to the xeno had not been the ones that had killed it - after their brief duel, they had been separated by the battle's flow, and it was the tanks that had taken it out. The war to come would be more straightforward - massacre, more than either hunt or battle - but there had been a great many Astartes who had fallen on Xit's plains today.

Not even comparable to the war's worth of orks, though.

"So," DuCaine said as the sun set behind him. "It seems we're done here?"

And they weren't, but they were.


	99. 2-77: Marius 2

The Adamantium Guard received the summons for Terra while in transit, which was overall quite convenient.

Marius Gage received his primarch's summons during training. He'd been observing Twenty-Seventh Company, hoping to make sure they weren't getting rusty in transit. The Twenty-Seventh hadn't seen action since Biion, most of the trans-Mieaur compliances being rather smaller-scale and thus not calling for overwhelming force.

Well, that, and a fair few of them were diplomatic. More than once, the Third-and-a-Half Expeditionary Fleet (as it was unofficially dubbed for want of a formal designation) emerged above a world to see its denizens happy to be reunited with greater humanity - if not immediately, then after the primarch's first broadcast. More than once, some elements of the fleet were unhappy with such a bloodless compliance.

"War," Rakissen Legis had said - and this, Gage agreed with wholeheartedly, no matter from whose lips it spilled - "is a means to an end. It is ludicrous that some in the Expedition seem to take it as an end in itself."

"The less bloodthirsty elements tended to stay with the Third," Gage pointed out.

"Naturally," Legis had said. "But there's still too many idiots among the Army, even if Faro didn't get any of his own, which I doubt."

So it was that, when battle came, it often fell to elements besides the Adamantium Guard; and so it was that Gage was needed to view the spars among Twenty-Seventh Company's elite.

"That was an impressively overconfident blow," Gage said, pointing to one of the cages. "It would work against mortals, but against Astartes - well, you saw."

Captain Satar Tamaro, recently promoted to the post after the reforms, shrugged. "But we do not face Astartes in the Crusade, Chapter Master."

"Astartes, no," Gage acknowledged, "but orks are physically not much weaker, and other xenos might be more terrible still. That is the purpose of such spars."

Tamaro nodded, taking it in, and then turned to the Chapter Master with a sudden grin. "Come to think of it, I could use some time in the cages of my own."

"As could I," Gage said, recognizing the captain's intent.

The spar attracted a sizable audience. Truth be told, while Gage was an able fighter, he was not one of the Legion's true single-combat champions; Tamaro, meanwhile, was quite skilled with a blade, which was one of the reasons given by Legis for his promotion. Martial quality was not the most important quality in an officer, but it did have value, both in inspiration and in continuity.

Nonetheless, the duel was even. Perhaps Tamaro really was out of practice, or perhaps troubled by something else. Regardless, they had a point apiece when the summons came and Gage was forced to take his leave. He passed his chambers, and quickly assembled his armor.

White armor. Purer than the gray they had fought in before, but more prone also to staining. They held a higher standard now. Not all of the Legion's high command had measured up to that standard, and certainly not all of their allies.

But that was no excuse to accept anything less.

Vosotho was there already, and Tyrenn came in a moment after Gage. The primarch nodded as they came in, and closed the sanctum's doors. Legis's inner circle was equivalent to his most senior commanders - a change in one, it had been made clear, would be associated with a change in the other. And there was no need for stray ears to learn matters above their level.

"News has come from Terra," Legis said, sitting down at the holo-table, and explained his recall. He was as solid as ever, his metallic brows furrowed on the short message.

"What could possibly call for that?" Tyrenn asked.

"A major xeno threat, perhaps," Gage speculated.

"Alas," Legis said, "or rather fortunately, it seems to be mere bureaucracy. After Mor-rioh'i, perhaps that is expected. This fleet having no numerical designation is a telling point."

"The Emperor can't possibly - "

"All four primarchs have been called to Ganymede," Rakissen said. "I am eager to meet my brothers, true, but to call all of us away from our separate campaigns implies something more than censure. But that is my concern; yours, especially Chapter Master Vosotho's, will be the continuation of this campaign."

"So Vosotho will have command," Tyrenn clarified. "The Adamantine Guard will understand that, of course, but I worry about Legio Fureans."

"And the Red Mikkesethe even moreso," Legis said. "I would advise finding the closest xenos and throwing the lot at them."

Vosotho nodded. "I will not fail you, my lord."

"Don't," Legis said; and as he did, the primarch stood up, the lumens above glinting reflected in his liquid-metal face, looking down on them like the statue of a legend. "You are my sons, and the first among them. I entrust this campaign to you only because I know you are capable of winning it."

The Chapter Masters nodded, each interpreting the primarch's words in their own way. Tyrenn, no doubt, was still grappling with his rapid elevation. Vosotho was perhaps looking back - he would, in effect, be Legion Master one last time here. And Gage -

It was no secret that he was Legis's favorite, in some ways. But unlike Tyrenn, he'd had a reputation well before that. He was the dutiful tactician, and it was for that reason that he was able to adapt to the primarch's philosophy so quickly.

He was a cog in the Imperium's engine of war - they were all cogs, even the primarch. But that they were cogs did not mean they weren't people, did not mean that their victories and mistakes weren't their own.

And in the end, inconvenient as that sometimes was, the same was true of their subordinates.


	100. 2-78: Anhazthe 4

Below the solemn countenances of the Felgarrthi Mountains, the Legion trials were beginning.

Anhazthe was there, of course. Near all of Medusa was there, for the Iron Moon. So much had been regained, but the dictates of tectonics were still absolute. Anhazthe had ideas for how to solve that, but they were far from a priority, and far in the future regardless.

So for now, she watched with moderate interest the trials the Thirteenth Legion's support staff had put together. Individual excellence, however it was expressed, as well as the ability to work together. Zenaqbaf had designed the trials, but even the old War Commander seemed surprised at how many youths from every clan had turned out for them.

Anhazthe was not. "The challenge," she had said, "the high odds - that is precisely why the brave and the ambitious dare to reach for the stars."

There were other paths to the greater Imperium, in principle. Haraiwist, the new Hunt Commander, was often concerned - together with his equivalents in other Clans - with trade between Medusa and the greater Imperium. New foods, new books -

And new technology. And it was in this point that Anhazthe, and indeed the collective Iron Fathers of Medusa, found a difficulty.

"Why do you watch them?" Eghaash, Iron Father to Clan Zikrii, asked from beside her.

"It is a momentous event," she said, turning to face the burly man. "Medusa's first and foremost role in the Imperium is as the homeworld of the Thirteenth Legion Astartes. Besides which, I know some of those children."

"And the Mechanicum envoys - "

"Are not yet here in person," Anhazthe said. "Though once they are, I would appreciate as large a quorum of the Iron Fathers as possible."

When the lander did come, bearing the Mechanicum delegation with it, bizarrely irritated by the reluctance to do business remotely, Anhazthe had no trouble at all gathering that quorum. Indeed, she had to send some of the fraternity away so as to avoid a concentration of leadership. The cowled figure that emerged from the ramp at first seemed to be an automaton of some sort, but when he threw his hood back it revealed an organic face - well, some parts of it were organic, at least. He was more human than Anhazthe, in that, though in his case transformation had been voluntary, which spoke much about his homeworld. (Not that Anhazthe regretted what she had become, though not infrequently she wondered if she should.) A hovering skull bobbed up and down beside him. Three apparently subordinate adepts stood behind him, as well as a flesh-organic hybrid that seemed to be fully mindless.

"I am Magos Metallurgicus Laomos Phroon," the Mechanicum representative said. "Where is the primarch?"

"Crusading," Anhazthe said, stepping forward. "I am Anhazthe of Clan Avernii, and I will lead negotiations from the Medusan side."

She was not first among the Iron Fathers, of course, not even a first among equals. Though the fraternity recognized Rakissen Legis's authority, and though there were other women among them now, though not many, and though her unconventional induction had long been forgotten - for all that, the Iron Fathers had never had a singular leader, and there was reason behind that.

Nevertheless, she still led the negotiation, not for her position among the Iron Fathers but for her closeness to the primarch.

"Very well, then," Phroon said. "If it will be a negotiation, then I will accede for it to proceed according to your cultural norms. Nevertheless, I must emphasize that it is the Mechanicum that Medusa's culture originated from."

"It is Rakissen Legis that it originated from," Eghaash put in.

Phroon responded with haughty indifference, or perhaps tightly wound frustration - it was hard to tell. "Where will negotiations be conducted?" he simply asked.

He was no iterator, that much was clear. Of course, Anhazthe wasn't one either, but she understood the imperative to send either specialists or leaders to diplomatic meetings. Had the Mechanicum not foreseen contact at all? Had they thought that the disparate splinters of Mechanicum scout-ships, whose wreckage over the millennia of Old Night had drifted, clinging narrowly to life, to the Medusan surface, to have retained their society, much less loyalties, through the ages?

Anhazthe led the delegations to Regharvi-Fusth, the crowds parting before them. Simanus, at the procession's head, ended up playing the role of herald. As he did so, the Iron Fathers tensely settled, among themselves, the question of proximity to negotiations. Anhazthe, Eghaash, and Kozephdech would make up the core; others would rotate in and out.

"It seems," Phroon pointed out, "that you expect this to last some time."

"Negotiations usually do," Anhazthe said. "Unless they collapse immediately, at least."

"Naturally," Phroon said, "especially with inefficiencies, but is Medusa not already compliant?"

"We are part of the Imperium, as are you. Past that..."

"I see." Phroon seemed contemplative for a time. "So it was not, after all, a technicality. And the primarch is not here."

"In matters of technology," Kozephdech put in, "the Iron Fathers still hold abundant authority."

They arrived before they could continue further, Phroon's subordinates expressing some surprise at the ambiance of the hookah parlor and taking the time to chemically measure the mixes for which had the highest ratio of stimulants to toxins. As Anhazthe, for her part, no longer needed to breathe - like, for that matter, Magos Phroon - she let Frater Vorb explain the histories of the mixes as she briefly spoke to the manager, allowing old Kaarmer to point them in the general direction of the room where the negotiation was to take place.

"Surely one could synthesize a single optimal mix," Phroon opined. "Or a set of three or four." He looked to Anhazthe as he said it. Perhaps, she realized, he was identifying with her own cybernetic modifications. Though, more likely, it was her position as his counterpart.

"Tastes vary," Anhazthe said with a shrug. She had her own, which were by no means the same as what they had been before her reconstruction. There was so much that could be changed about a person, and yet leave them themselves; and yet there were also singular points that, if broken, could bring the edifice of identity down.

Phroon paused for a moment, before deciding on his course of action. "Very well," he said. "I will be open, and will appreciate the same. I do not believe I was sent here with the expectation of success - perhaps I was sent precisely because I was judged expendable. Nevertheless, I have wide latitude for negotiating a deal. Naturally, I cannot agree to conditions contrary to the Mechanicum's principles; aside from that, the question is what concessions you want, and what can be given in exchange for them."

"To begin with, the ones granted by the Emperor to Rakissen Legis," Anhazthe immediately said.

It took Phroon some time to download them - that he had not received them upon departing on this mission implied that someone had deliberately sabotaged it. Anhazthe's opinion of the Martian Mechanicum fell rapidly with that realization. Vulnerability to intrigue was one thing, but to so nearly lose a whole world due to it...

Yet it also, of course, offered an opportunity, because the price that the Mechanicum would pay for access to Medusa would not be paid by Magos Laomos Phroon.

"That..." Phroon's eyes widened at the revelation - given that they were bionic, certainly an intentional effect. "It is the decree of the Omnissiah, of course, and His will is beyond us. But these terms would be unprecedented, and I would be ridiculed for the suggestion."

"Truly?" Vorb asked, leaning in. "Is your authority over the sciences that absolute?" Knowing Vorb, Anhazthe could tell that he was indecisive between awe at the control the Mechanicum thus exerted and concern for the implications of such a monopoly.

"Sometimes the Mechanicum works through intermediaries, of course," Phroon said. "When, however, an Explorator organizes an excavation, the expedition's ownership of the discoveries is the driving factor."

"That does not sound functional," Frater Danhaz said.

That led into a discussion of the Mechanicum's organization. That data, at least, Phroon was not reticent to share, even if it was perhaps surficial; and the Iron Fathers spoke of their own fraternity in exchange.

The Mechanicum had substantial autonomy from the greater Imperium - something that Anhazthe had already appreciated. But it was a sub-empire formed between vast gulfs of the galaxy during the Age of Strife, and so its pieces also had substantial autonomy from each other. Furthermore, now that its web was part of the skeleton of the Imperium of Man, its adepts' divergence from each other was only growing.

"It is quite a disappointment," Eghaash concluded during a break, "if this is really the origin of Medusan culture."

"You said it yourself," Anhazthe pointed out. "Rakissen Legis is the origin of Medusan culture. What came before..."

Well, they all remembered what came before. The federation was young still; there were not yet faces in the fraternity that were born onto a unified Medusa.

"We'll have to turn them down," Kozephdech concluded, "won't we?"

There were rumbles of vague agreement, as Anhazthe thought about the matter. To refuse integration, even in an imperfect substrate, ran counter to her instincts. Besides which, to turn Phroon down now would mean more embassies with less tolerable terms, and in the end, without a doubt, the hostility of Mars. What would be done with a clan whose Iron Father refused even the motions of cooperating with the fraters?

They could not, would not, bend in this. And yet -

And yet there was a choice, as stark as polluted night and stratospheric day, though which was which remained uncertain.

"There are two solutions," Anhazthe said. "One is to turn the Mechanicum down entirely, and after the next embassy, make it clear that the Martians are not wanted here. If so, we will need to look for other allies - likely the forges of Terra, such as they are. The other is to exploit the remit Magos Phroon has been given, and ask for recognition as a Forge World, with the consequent rights."

"To bind ourselves to the Mechanicum even more tightly?" Eghaash asked, surprised.

"Or to bind ourselves to another force," Anhazthe said. "We cannot, and should not, stand alone. And this is not idle intrigue. The Imperium of Man stands at its beginning still; what it will become is unclear."

There was discussion after that, and debate, and consultation with Phroon, who was delighted with the concept of naming Medusa a full Forge World. It would serve his personal ambition, for one, and it would provide Medusa both the knowledge it wanted and the agency it needed; and it was politically palatable, too, especially for someone who had never set foot or tread on Medusa.

But it was still a great shift.

Anhazthe wished for Rakissen's counsel in this, more than ever in her life - yet she could not have it. And the human advice she received, from the other Commanders, seemed devoid of true insight. Yes, of course the primarch would have a veto; yes, of course the clans were loyal to him and not to the Iron Fathers. She knew all that; she knew how Medusa worked, better than perhaps anyone save Rakissen himself.

It ended with a vote. The Iron Fathers made up their minds, one by one. It was not an eternal bind, one way or another, but even if Rakissen vetoed it the effects would take years to propagate, given Warp travel's slowness.

Outside the Felgarrthi sanctuary, in the raw wilds, the Iron Moon broke the ground of Medusa down and reforged it. Inside the smoke-filled pinnacle of Regharvi-Fusth, a council of one hundred and one made their choices; and then Anhazthe realized that they all had, save for her. The vote was deadlocked, fifty against fifty.

To take the offer in hand, or to hold out for a better one?

Anhazthe looked down at her right hand. Its covering was roughly skin-colored, still, but the metallic luster betrayed that illusion. She had said it earlier - it was a question of what the Imperium of Man would become. Medusa needed the Mechanicum, but the Mechanicum needed Medusa too, if not with as much weight.

It wasn't about the Iron Fathers at all, or even Medusa, to say nothing about Clan Avernii. It was a grain of sand before the galaxy itself, but one never knew when a grain of sand would start a landslide. She had been rebuilt with metal, but her brain was still organic - even if it wasn't, her studies in artificial intelligence, before the Imperium had come to forbid them, said there wasn't such an inherent dependence on substrate, but only on purpose.

The Mechanicum desired knowledge, a worthy quest. And she did like Phroon, personally, and the terms he offered were generous.

But none of that meant they owed the Martians anything, despite what they seemed to think. And one did not build upon a flawed foundation, and the Mechanicum's haphazard faith was far from a solid one.

That Medusa and Mars were both of metal did not mean they were the same.

"Against," Anhazthe said, looking up at last. "We delay, and if Rakissen is neutral, we refuse absolutely. Medusa will find its own way in the Imperium."


	101. 2-79: Hadrusbal 4

Hadrusbal, once overlord of the Death's Eyes, was watching Hive Vilepor from his balcony when Faro found him.

The primarch's second return to Cthonia was most unlike his first. There were no processions, not even a public announcement. The arrival of a Solar Herald frigate in the skies was almost a quotidian occurrence, now, certainly nothing to be concerned about if the Solar Heralds didn't say it was.

Cthonia had changed. Cthonia was still changing, if at a slower pace without Faro there to guide it.

And Hadrusbal had changed himself, too.

He was startled when the knock came - his security systems were just about the best of the planet for a reason. Still, checking them again revealed just who it was, and he couldn't open the door fast enough.

"My lord," he said with a nod. "And Ezekyle, of course. Well, I bid you welcome to my humble abode, albeit I'm afraid the ceilings are a bit low."

"It is fortunate indeed that I was created with the ability to sit down," Faro said. "You're doing well, I see."

Hadrusbal shrugged, even as he stepped back, having to truly resist the temptation to abase himself at Faro's words.

Faro was so luminous now. Hadrusbal was no witch, but he could tell, somehow, that Faro's soul burned blue-hot today. Perhaps one could call it adulthood at last.

"The security system? There's a fair few people that want to assassinate me, both seriously and not, and a fair amount of ways for me to get money."

"Information's as valuable as ever, I see," Keyshen said.

"More valuable, I'd say."

"Disequilibrium fuels life," Faro mused. "Or economies, at least... But I was referring to the rejuvenat. I was worried I'd come back to find you on your deathbed."

Hadrusbal shrugged. "I have the connections, and the people refusing it are either fools or suicidal." It was a heady experience, being young again - even if it wasn't truly the same. A second life, with room to make all sorts of novel mistakes...

Not that he had to start over from nothing. Not that he especially wanted to.

"But you're still retired," Faro said as they took their seats and Hadrusbal poured them all ale.

"This is retirement?" Keyshen asked his primarch, with evident surprise.

"Hiali's doing well enough," Hadrusbal said with a shrug. The whole point of a new start was not to be cornered by life in the same way again. He was still working, of course, traveling Cthonia and dredging its secrets for the governments and the wealthy to pick over, or sitting back and guiding untrustworthy allies in the risking of their lives, and he still drank with the Death's Eyes, but even if he could do a better job as governor than Hiali (and he had no idea if that was true) he wasn't going to double back like that. "What about you? How goes the war?" Hadrusbal tilted his head, the connection made. "Because you're not just here to catch up."

Keyshen's eyes widened a touch.

"I didn't get this apartment on memories alone," Hadrusbal added with a smile.

Faro nodded, face suddenly seeming to narrow, eyes growing distant. "That you did not. What have you heard of the Shedim Drifts campaign?"

Not much, was the answer, and as Faro explained that war Hadrusbal began to understand why. It was the sort of mess that happened sometimes. Alliances collapsed, and even when they didn't you got grudges. Hadrusbal's hoped a bit that the primarchs were smart enough to not be prone to that, at least on first encounter, but he could see how two great men could feel like there was not enough room for them both -

Except it wasn't Rakissen Legis that concerned Faro, that had made his slick optimism into a facade.

"It was meant to get easier," Faro said. "I thought I would understand better, in time."

"I'm not sure I'm the authority you should be discussing the role of xenos with," Hadrusbal noted.

"If it was xenos alone!" Faro exclaimed. "Were the choices binary, they would be easy. We take up arms in the hope we need them not, but the Imperium's cause is worthy - only the compromises it calls for... Not each seed, but the forest they grow."

"Forest," Hadrusbal said after a pause. "You invented the word, for our tongue. I thought it silly, at the time."

Faro paused, still distant. The image of a springfire wavering under great winds sprung to mind - a gas fire, even. Blue-hot, but too close to flickering in doubt.

It was frightening, in a way even Faro's certainty was not.

"It is not me you should be talking to," Hadrusbal said. "Go. Walk the forests of Cthonia. And its rivers, and its boulevards, and its farms... See what you have built. It has slowed without you, the knots of resistance more brazen, but even away from the great corridors, every month heralds a block reclaimed, every year a greater dream. And see then whether the growth of reality upon the scaffolding of ideals is really worth regretting."

And Faro smiled again, and this time it was genuine.

"Yes," he said. "Yes, I think that is what I will do for a while. And after, Ganymede calls."


	102. 2-80: Villyas 2

After Xit was taken, and the primarch departed for Terra, the campaign in the Wheel of Fire entered what the chroniclers would doubtlessly call its final stages. Bio-pogroms, some called it; xenocide not as war, but as extermination.

Villyas Vubaza knew just how overconfident that metaphor was. Not necessarily false, mind you, but overconfident.

As Xit was secured, the Second Legion had taken Parr, Pexk, and Beld in a single day, or as close to it as Warp time anomalies allowed for. Small worlds, in the grand scheme, but bases for their rangings to strike from. The Tenth and Eighteenth moved outward from Xit, securing a stable front and gradually pushing it outwards.

The Second, on this scale, was not bound to the formalism of fronts. Their fleets were modular tendrils spanning the void, and the tendril Vubaza led from the _Vendator_ was now coiling around the twin worlds of Garab and Marab, tidally locked to one another and subject to periodic flares from their dwarf star yet possessed of enough minerals and native life to support the orks. The currents towards Xit had been depleted because political cohesion had been lost, every system now fighting for itself (often against its neighbors).

"How are there still this many of them, then?!" Loeron panted, driving his chainsword through one of the few remaining orks on the enemy 'bridge'.

"Spores, apparently," Vubaza said, decapitating another of the stragglers. "The scholars are still trying to figure out the rest."

"Hard to study a species this dedicated to killing you," Bridikwa put in.

Vubaza took a look around. "Bridge cleared," he voxed. Calling the control room a bridge was an exaggeration, of course. The xeno ships had no central command systems, which led to them occasionally ramming each other in battle, but also had the consequence of making them hard to disable completely. It was interesting, even. Novelty against the orks was much more abundant in orbit than on any ground.

"What next, Brother-Captain?" Bridikwa asked.

Vubaza put a hand up as he took in the shape of battle. It was clear by now that the boarding action would not succeed in taking control of the ship - too many orks for that. But with what Namboer reported from the engine room, it didn't need to. Vubaza walked up to the steering wheel at the center of the ship and gave it a solid turn to the right.

Promptly, the walls became the floor, and then the floor became the walls, and then, finally, they were left floating in microgravity as the ship shuddered around them.

"Brother-Captain..."

"Silence!"

The command squad obeyed, as Vubaza heard the commentary of Namboer's squad crawling on the floor under the malfunctioning gravitational field, saved only by the fact that the orks they were fighting were doing even worse, before ordering them to be picked up and muting them too.

The creaking was audible. The ship was on the verge of breakup. The command squad's concern was tangible.

Vubaza grinned and grabbed the wheel again.

"Squad, engage hermetic seals," he ordered, before bracing against the floor and wrenching the wheel to the right, cranking it again and again.

It wasn't, perhaps, as dramatic as he'd unconsciously hoped. But the ork wave distantly visible in the corridor, charging towards the bridge, was very quickly left as smears on the walls, and then, bit by bit, the shockwaves spread. The Stormbird carrying Namboer's and Clorr's squads took evasive action, but got out quickly enough to avoid significant danger. What remained constant, though, was the bridge. Even as the rest of the ship was torn apart, over the course of the following hours, the bridge remained - as Vubaza had suspected - an oasis of stability, asymptotically approaching zero-g but otherwise unchanged.

The difficulty was getting out, of course. Zero acceleration didn't mean zero velocity, but pickup was tricky in a number of ways. Eventually, the squad (half its members rattling profanities that were certainly not aimed at their captain's latest insanity) arranged itself into an aerial formation and pushed off to a relatively safe locus.

"If you could actually tell it was going to do that," Arkwahi said when they were out of the debris field, "the Mechanicum might want to have a word."

"I could tell it was going to do something," Vubaza said, "and something that would affect us less than it affected everything else. I think the orks deliberately had it there to prevent a mutiny."

Arkwahi shook his head. "One day, Brother-Captain, you're going to get us all killed. But on reflection, you're going to get so many xenos killed before then that it may just be worth it."

The former battleship fell, in chunks pushed along by photonic bombardment from the Second Legion fleet, to the surfaces of both worlds, explosions blooming across Garab and Marab alike. Battle Group Vendator adapted as quickly as ever, heavy bombardment following up the impacts while their confused surroundings were targeted with drop pods.

Garab and Marab burned, an echo to dozens of other worlds in the subsector and a foreshock to the rest.

The war for the Wheel of Fire had not ended, was not even close to it. The scattered dominions of the orks did not even realize they had lost, not really. The main part of three Legions fought precisely, resolutely, and fiercely, but victory did not come without risk or blood.

Yet they fought on, disparate yet united sparks in the vast green waste, and bit by bit, the waste fell back.


	103. 2-81: Ri 10

The shipyards were like rays around Ganymede, the spines of a creature only half there. Ri Domaan had only briefly glimpsed them during his first journey to Terra - why, he had barely walked even Mars. But then, the shipyards were not worlds, no more than a shipyard of Avalon's ocean was an island. They were extensions - extensions perhaps of Ganymede, or perhaps of Jupiter, no matter that a large portion of the Jovian populace dwelled within them.

So Ri's attention was not on his surroundings, but on those who awaited within them.

"Lord Domaan," the herald - Amaran of the Custodes - said, "welcome to Ganymede."

Domaan nodded. "Which of my brothers are here?"

"Faro Aquilair of the Third and Valmar Russ of the Eighteenth, the latter having arrived just hours ago." They had found easy paths through the Warp, Ri discovered. His own had been truculent, the Immaterium more hostile even than usual. There were no omens he saw in that, but that did not mean there were none to be seen.

They walked briefly across the black ice, before Faro found them. Ri's first impression of his brother was by psychic aura - an aura that was, simply, alive, a symphony not without doubt or winter but one that found reasons to smile even within them. He was equally vibrant in person, wearing a multicolored cloak that was somehow not garish, white hair tied back in a proud tail. "Brother!" Faro said, and their hands met in a warrior's grip. "It is good to meet you at last."

Ri smiled. "I must say the same," he said.

Faro nodded. "So, then," he said, "tell me of Avalon."

Ri did, speaking of the sea and the sky, of the high forests and the foaming floods, and Faro replied with Cthonia, with cavernous pasts and towering futures. And Ri saw him in that light, for though they had all been woven on Luna, and Faro had spent the least time on his homeworld of them all, he was Faro of Cthonia still. And if Cthonia sounded like Terra, save with ignominy instead of fame, then so it was, and there was no cause for disgust in that.

They talked of Crusade too, of course. Faro spoke of campaigns past, and Ri found himself almost without meaning to alluding to his struggles with the Seventh, phrased of course respectfully. Faro nodded in understanding. "I have fought alongside them, though," he said, "and if they are sometimes a wall, they are an unbreakable one. They can be relied on."

"All of the Legions can, surely."

"If only!" Faro said. "Though perhaps it is for the best that the Legions differ so much from one another."

And they talked, also, of the Imperial dream, and if that discussion was brief it was also illuminating. The strands of that dream were fey and uncertain still, of course, but that eternal motion forward animated them both.

Valmar Russ, they met in the workshop in the lower parts of the base, accompanied by wolves. Geri and Hral, they were called, beasts from Valmar's homeworld of Fenris. His upbringing had been far nearer Ri's own, though wilder by far. As to his aura, which was strong yet calmer and more shadowed than Faro's, it was of ringing hammers and proud feasts.

There was a gap between them, though, none of the easy familiarity that rose between Ri and Faro. Perhaps, Ri would reflect later, they were _too_ similar, and from that their differences seemed starker.

While they found some amount of kinship in their worlds, and their attitudes towards them, the way they spoke of paths and dreams was different. "Why forge here?" Ri had asked, out of curiosity alone. "Surely there are better workshops in orbit."

"There are," Valmar had said, "but we are not meeting in orbit, and I needed to spend the time somehow."

Ri had nodded. "To understand this palace, and Ganymede."

Valmar had tilted his head. "No, not at all. The orbitals have better workshops, but these are still godlike, by the standards of worlds like Fenris, or I imagine Avalon."

"Godlike?"

"A... figure of speech. The Imperial Truth asserts there are no gods. But when the Emperor came down from the skies, with arms and sorcery none could match - well, it is no surprise some took it as legends fulfilled. They all said the Uppland was where the gods dwelled, after all. Now I know the truth, and yet when some of Fenris's tribes call me a god, there is little I can say to dissuade them."

"We are not gods."

"Not to ourselves. Not to our father, or our Legions. But 'god' is only a word, in the end. Worship is an act - and it is that that the Imperium has forbidden, as best as we are able."

In a sense, Valmar was not wrong that divinity was a matter of standards. But in the end, his reaction to the Imperial Truth was to shrug and move onward, his concerns concrete. His vision for the Imperium was prosperity; it was the beauty of wilderness untamed, and industry beyond Martian dreams, and the voices of a galactic humanity. And if some of it was built on faith, that was only a small thing.

Ri, though, saw the Imperium as not forests or factories or even people, but as emerging from among them. It was a structure flexible enough to last forever, a dream of progress as well as its reality (and having seen the reality on Terra, he was less than perfectly impressed by it). He had his own spirituality, of course; but if worlds were sacred, that did not ascribe them agency. And as to the Uppland where Fenrisians saw gods, Avalonians saw only the poison of the rifts.

And thoughts deeper than that, both kept to themselves.

Still, if they were wary towards each other, Valmar was still Ri's brother, and so was Faro, and Rakissen Legis who would come to Ganymede two days later; the first equals Ri had known, and family of a sort. And bound by blood and cause alike, they had no choice but to peer into the great wars and mysteries of the galaxy together, leaning on each other when the time came.


	104. 2-82: Rakissen 9

Rakissen Legis had approached Ganymede with some apprehension regarding the other primarchs. Mor-rioh'i did not weigh to heavily on his mind normally, but on a day like this it was inevitable.

It had gone better than he had expected, overall. Ri Domaan, the Jadesun, was reserved, even distant, but out of privacy rather than uncertainty. They had their disagreements, philosophically; Ri's humility seemed a discordant note to Rakissen, as if his brother trusted the masses more than himself. Yes, of course their place was to better humanity, but Medusa was a lesson in what societies left to evolve on their own could become, and not the worst. And Ri, though he did not say it, likely saw Rakissen as too quick-tempered. Their approaches were different - but they both understood their duty to the Emperor, and to the Great Crusade, and that was enough.

As to Valmar Russ, he was the only one of the primarchs that Rakissen felt genuine kinship with. They had met in the under-ice workshops, where a conversation about void war turned into a collaboration on a modification of the Wrath fighter design. Valmar was more an artisan than an engineer, but his technical knowledge was such as to cause Rakissen pause. And they swapped stories, after their (less than serious) spars, of the order they had forged among chaos, and their first impressions of Crusade.

Yet Valmar's attempts to heal the rift between Rakissen and Faro came to nothing. Rakissen still disdained Faro, and Faro still hated him, and that was that, to the Sky King's great frustration.

During this time of the War Council's gathering, too, news came of Anhazthe's decision on Medusa. Rakissen gave the token approval that was called for, and made arrangements to come to Terra after the summit to negotiate with the Terrawatt Clans for a collaboration. Humanity had to be whole, and the best way to prevent the Mechanicum from rebelling was to ensure they couldn't paralyze the Imperium by doing so.

But for now, Fabricator-General Koriel Pennetar came to Ganymede as envoy of the Martian Parliament and a member of the War Council, as did Malcador the Sigillite. Then there were the two Lord Commanders Militant of the Imperial Army, Kalaia Rhomanoi and Talex Bne'en. Ordinary humans - though 'ordinary' was a strong exaggeration for Rhomanoi, at least, whose biochemical modification rivaled the Astartes in extent, albeit not efficiency.

And two hours after Bne'en - surely, by design - the _Bucephelus_ entered Ganymede orbit, and the War Council was joined by Constantin Valdor, Captain-General of the Custodes, and finally by the Emperor of Mankind.

"Over the past sixteen years," the Emperor declared, his words as sharp and rapid as monomolecular blades, "the Expeditionary Fleets of the Great Crusade has brought thousands of worlds into the Imperium. Yet," he continued without an instant's pause, "the Rogue Traders ranging ahead of us have mapped ten times more systems, and given us the contours of the galactic situation. What they have revealed is that no great empire survived Old Night. There is no segmentum-spanning ally that we will find among the stars, but also no united foe. We will face enemies that are mighty and numerous, but we will not find those that can squash us like pests - at least, not within the Milky Way. But likewise, we have also learned without a doubt that we are humanity's best, and likely only, hope. And if our xeno foes did not have a head start against us, then neither was such an advantage ours."

He took a look around the room, protected physically and psychically like nothing else in the Jovian system. "The reason I have called together the War Council in person for the first - and perhaps last - time, then, is because we at long last have enough information to draw a large-scale strategy for the Great Crusade. You are the uppermost commanders in the Imperium's hierarchy, my closest advisors, in some cases my blood, and I have the utmost trust in all of you to work together for the cause of humanity."

The Emperor took a breath, for the first time since he had began speaking.

"And for this reason, a betrayal - even a small one - of that trust is unacceptable. Unity is what we strive for, and we can achieve nothing if we are divided against ourselves. Faro. Rakissen."

The Emperor's light became blinding. Rakissen felt the cold floor on his knees - when had he dropped to them? He didn't know. He couldn't see, not with his eyes and not with the sixth sense (or senses?) that he'd always possessed without quite realizing it.

"Mor-rioh'i was the first time two primarchs fought alongside each other in the Crusade," the Emperor said. "It should not have gone as it did. Rakissen, Faro - your actions have opened a rift in the Crusade, a rift that may never heal even if your personal feud does. What do you have to say for yourselves?"

"I erred," Rakissen said through gritted teeth. "I rushed to judgment. I am sorry, my lord."

"I allowed my anger and pride to control me," Faro said. Rakissen could not tell if there was bile in his words, they echoed so strangely in the room. "I am sorry, father."

The light receded. Rakissen rose shakily to his feet. Faro did the same. Rakissen's hearts filled with self-hatred at what he had done to the Crusade's progress, with despair at his mistake.

And then his eyes met Faro's, and he felt the disdain rise in him again. The Emperor had to appear fair, of course, but they all knew nothing had been forgiven.

"It is as I expected, then," the Emperor said, and his psychic light retreated, and though he still looked glorious as ever his voice was old. "You are repentant before me, yet still you look down on each other. I had hoped that you would be capable enough to be exempted from military hierarchy. It seems I overestimated your abilities, and my own in creating you."

The Emperor shook his head.

"Still, though, we do have a Crusade to plan, so let us begin. The xenos aren't going to wait up."


	105. 2-83: Faro 16

The design of the Great Crusade was constrained by its nature as a voyage into the unknown; and even now, with all the cartographic achievements of the Rogue Traders, it remained such. As such, the possibilities were endless, and the complexity too great perhaps even for the Emperor to chart alone.

But - and this still caused Faro Aquilair to smile, despite everything - the Emperor was not alone, and his sons and close advisors were more than enough to move stars.

The Emperor had not forced him and Legis to apologize to each other. More than likely, that was because his father had known any such apology would border insincerity. By the same token, the shadow of Mor-rioh'i was one he by now preferred to emerge from quickly as possible. He would talk of the place of xenos in the Crusade's advance later.

For now, it was that advance itself which was their concern.

There were xeno empires aplenty, some slavers and other exterminators. There were, also, human polities of note. But above all there was a gradation of interstellar travel, blocked by Warp Storms and by still zones and by stranger things, and so the Navigators' advice was taken into account to predict the main theaters of operations.

"But that which the Rogue Traders have found," Faro pointed out, "we will at this rate exhaust in two or three decades. Past that, the way is still unknown."

"We'll have to have another council, then," Bne'en proposed. The Imperial Army commanders looked rather out of place in the gathering, on height alone, but they did not long hesitate to offer their strategic opinion even when it was wrong. There was something to admire in that, Faro found. It was no easy thing, to have the courage for it.

"We will," Rakissen Legis said, "but those later discoveries affect the optimal path now."

Faro bit his lip, because of course he had meant to say different words to the same effect.

"Leave the optimal to the machines," the Emperor said. "Fabricator-General Pennetar, you can surely run a clustering algorithm to generate several divisions?"

"Yes," Pennetar said. "There are unknown variables, but the distribution can be modeled easily enough."

"How long will it take?" Valdor asked.

Pennetar's metallic mouth crinkled. "The calculation finished an hour ago."

The plans were laid out quickly enough. Five theaters, in one of two distributions, was predicted to be the optimal number. Yet the Emperor pointed immediately to the three-prong version.

"Why?" Pennetar asked him.

"Intuition," the Emperor said.

"Not psychic foresight?" Malcador asked with a smile.

"Intuition," the Emperor repeated, "aided by reflexive psychic foresight. Besides, five theaters is the natural amount at present, but it would imply four primarch-led theaters in addition to my primary. But there will never be twenty-one theaters, even if this organization pattern continues - which I expect it will not. As the Imperium grows, coordination will become more complex, to say nothing of comparable foes... a concern for another day."

"Models indicate the Imperium will not face a foe of comparable scale in the Milky Way," Pennetar said.

"That," Ri said, "is precisely the sort of model prediction one should never trust."

Faro smirked in agreement. It would not be so easy as that, they all knew. Still, it would not do to dwell on the point - Pennetar understood well enough, he could tell. "So north, south, and east?"

Malcador grinned again. "The Chartists would be incensed at such a simple description."

Faro smiled in return, thinking back to a hundred cartographic discussions. Warp transit tended to be made easier by realspace proximity to a dominant degree, but it was the exceptions in such things that made for the void-bound's livelihood. "First order," he clarified.

Bne'en muttered something under his breath, perhaps remembering a feud of old - but soon enough, the smiles dissolved, and an uncomfortable silence lay across the room. A psychic one, Faro realized. The Emperor was deep in thought, the intersection of destinies splintering the room's aura.

The pressure was released in an instant, the Emperor of Mankind standing up, and Faro caught a faint flicker, as if his father's flaming blade shot forth from his empty hand into the firestorms of the future.

"Faro," the Emperor said. "First-found. The restorer, the thunderbolt. Do you accept command of the southern theater?"

Faro knelt with a nod. The southern prong, out as much as not from Cthonia, into a region provisionally called Segmentum Tempestus - though the Warp routes made for a more intricate weave than all that.

"Rakissen Legis of Medusa," the Emperor continued, and Faro blinked in surprise - he'd expected it to be Valmar, in truth. But he saw the reasoning at once. After Mor-rioh'i, after the rebuke, they both needed to rebuild their legends. "The unifier, the steeltide. Do you accept command of the northern theater?"

Rakissen followed Faro's example, wordlessly proud.

"Valmar of the Russ," the Emperor continued, "after the Wheel of Fire, you will remain in the vicinity of Sol and the near western frontier, to coordinate the northern and southern theaters' logistics, to defend against attacks that pass our front lines, and to aid Faro and Rakissen when need calls." And, of course, to oversee Faro and Rakissen, keep them from getting in each other's way and worse. That went unsaid, but the implication was crystal-sharp.

"I will command the eastern theater myself," the Emperor continued. The largest theater, of course, in its potential for the future. "Ri Domaan, you will be my second-in-command therein, at the head of a new Expeditionary Fleet."

The rest tumbled from there - Malcador to remain on Terra, logistical changes, subordinate detachments. The mundane work of planning for a galaxy's fate.

Theirs were the wars to come, and if in this moment they were but the lords of Terra, Faro could already see the stars scattered like sand before their flame.


	106. 2-84: Valmar 11

The council at Ganymede was brief, as those things went, because the Emperor's word was law and because there was so much to do.

On the last day, though - on the last day, on the slopes of Harakhtes crater, where the blackened ice of ancient Ganymede met the freshly exposed whiteness within, Valmar looked across the desolation one last time. There was much of Ganymede that had been consumed by industry and life and war, but Harakhtes had been left as it had once been, before humanity had placed its second foot on the surface. It was not the same, of course. The atmosphere above them, even, was artificial, thin though it was before the bleak-blue sky of noon.

Ri Domaan took walks here, not uncommonly, but though it was wilderness Valmar did not see the point. Fenris was alive, and Terra and Cthonia and surely Avalon were alive in their own ways, but there was nothing to Harakhtes and little to Ganymede. Still, he took it in to remember, because this too was worth remembering.

And it was there that the Emperor found him.

"Father?"

"Valmar," the Emperor said with a sigh. "Do you mind if I sat down?" Valmar cleared a space on the rim, and the Emperor sat down, peering into unrevealed distance for an instant before shaking his head, laying his hand on Valmar's shoulder, and returning to earth.

"I do apologize about the assignment," the Emperor said.

"I have nothing to complain about in it." True, it was not a frontline place, but it was an essential one nevertheless.

"Some of your Legion will, though," the Emperor said.

Valmar nodded in understanding. The Draka Fenryka had often been deployed to plug such gaps, before his finding, and more than a few had likely wished for a more dramatic change. But this was not a repeat of the past; they would spend time on the Crusade's forefront, he had no intent to let defense grow as desperate as the Eighteenth's battles tended to before, and he would have the resources to ensure that.

The Emperor accepted his explanation. "And the matter of keeping peace between your brothers?"

"I have seen feuds far worse, and settled some. Though, of course..."

Though, of course, Faro and Rakissen were not merely human, and he was deeply proud to call both of them his brothers. But all the same.

They talked of Valmar's assignment for a few more minutes, as they walked back between lines of antennae to the complex. The Emperor pointed out two points of light in orbit. "These are my parting gifts to Ri and Rakissen," he said. "Two new _Gloriana_ -classes, from the shipyards of Mars. Ri has called his the _Cusp of Eternity_. But Mars has not had the time to construct a fifth _Gloriana_ -class yet."

There was a brief silence, save for the wind rustling the antennae.

"I imagine you will want to forge your own weapons and armor," the Emperor continued as they descended a staircase to the forge complex underground, "but you will understand that I wished to give you _something_."

Valmar's eyes widened to take it in, particularly given how well it blended into the dimly lit walls behind. At first glance, the vehicle seemed to be a jetbike of quadrupled scale, but one of a pattern unlike any he was familiar with. Its design was intricate to the point of being incomprehensible, swooping in microscopic spires and speckles.

"Did you build it?"

"I only refurbished it," the Emperor said, and for once his aura seemed distant. "Even that was the work of months. This is the last Peryton-pattern phasebike built in the Larimer belt, in the final moments of the Age of Technology. I will give you the blueprints, in the event that you need to make your own repairs - I am not sure even your brothers could manage the same."

Valmar took in the contours - the control system seemed intuitive, though he could only barely tell how the vehicle worked. Sitting in the pilot's saddle, he turned a handle, the bike seeming to instantly and effortlessly transition to hovering above the ground. It responded as if it was alive, indeed perhaps in a sense it was alive, and its name -

"Its name," Valmar said, "is Wyldbreaker."

The primarch turned back, to see his father half-hiding a small smile.

"Go," the Emperor said. "There are only a few hours before takeoff... Go, to your brothers, for the memories that will light the way into the future that we are fighting for, on the other side. Go."

"For humanity's sake," Valmar said, and flew into the darkness.

 **End Part 2**


End file.
